Impetuous Acumen
by Cudabear
Summary: Our world might have its limits, but they will never be fully realized. One bird will learn just how many more ways he can push those limits when he stumbles into a tool shed in the middle of a field in Kansas. Post-Portal 2, contains spoilers.
1. Part I

**Impetuous Acumen  
**A Penguins of Madagascar/Portal Crossover

**Part I**

* * *

**"THERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO LEARN, PRIVATE."**

Kowalski sat on top of the artificial ice floe with his smaller and younger teammate, swishing his webbed feet through the water. The Central Park Zoo was closed for the evening, and as such the sun was setting. The tall office buildings visible just over the walls of the zoo cast long shadows over the two birds like looming giants.

Private shifted in his place a bit as though he was trying to get a better look at Kowalski. "You can't say that," he argued. "There's no being on the Earth who knows _everything_."

"I agree," the intellectual responded, "though that is not what I'm trying to convey. Our universe is massive, and though there are ninety-one stable elements to experiment in addition to an unknown number of unstable ones, there are only so many ways to put things together. Physics and chemistry can only go so far. There's only so many inventions to design, only so many devices to build."

"You're telling me that you've already invented every possible contraption in the world?" the smaller bird wondered.

"Not just me, Private. Everyone, animal and human alike, has been experimenting and building new contrivances for thousands of years. Perhaps I have not implemented every design on my own, but someone has."

"That doesn't mean you can't improve on their designs and make them better," the shorter bird replied.

Kowalski looked in the direction of a honked car horn before sighing. "I've tried doing just that, but each time I contrive an idea I either achieve identical efficiency or less. That doesn't include the times where my inventions attempt to kill us, either."

Private smiled. "We've had some close calls." A moment of silence, filled only by the gentle sloshing of the water up against the concrete ice floe. "Hey, what about that time you successfully invented a time machine? That's something that's never been done before."

"Tearing apertures in the space-time fabric is something that shouldn't be done, Private. You know that the use of that device nearly resulted in catastrophe. Just one of those limits imposed by physics and chemistry."

"Maybe you could find another way about it, then? Like, what if you could get around the whole time-rippy part?" Private pondered.

"Impossible," Kowalski remarked with a dismissive wave of his flipper. "Just another one of the many insurmountable barriers I've come across in the last few years. Do you remember the Next-O-Skeleton?"  
The other penguin nodded.

"The first rendition was too top heavy. Steel plating and weaponry attached to it in a form similar to the penguin anatomy were the reason. In the second rendition, when I attempted to attach more plating to the feet of the suit to balance it out, it became too much for the power supply to move, and the loss of jump jets made it almost useless. The third rendition had far too little armor and weaponry cut out to remove that weight problem and the fuel supply was minuscule. The universe has far too many limits to allow for such creations to be practical."

Private arched his brow slightly. "That doesn't sound like the Kowalski I know."  
"What do you mean?" questioned the scientist.

"The Kowalski I know would be pushing forward to try to break those limits and prove that many things can be possible with the right tools. That's how you discovered how to tear the space-time thingy in the first place, right? You threw that light-saw thing and where it hit the wall it made a little rip?"

Kowalski nodded solemnly. "You are correct. However I've come to know that these occurrences are of another nature, something that doesn't belong in our universe. That's why such danger exists around them, and many of our problems have been created by them."

"Only a few of our problems have been created by your inventions," the other penguin encouraged. "Hey, what about the Space Squid? How do you explain how he was basically able to teleport?"

"Molecular reatomization isn't hard, Private. Long ago I was able to implement a teleporter to transport an apple from one side of the room to the other in the blink of an eye. The fact of the matter is that the more complex an item being transported becomes, the greater the risk of failure. Squids are far simpler beings than penguins."

Private looked confused, so Kowalski said, "Think of what would happen if your body turned inside-out like the apple did on approximately three-point-sixty-five percent of the tests."

Private shuttered. "I don't really want to imagine what that would be like."

"Exactly," Kowalski affirmed.

Private looked a little upset for a few moments as another moment of silence passed between the two. When he spoke again he looked a bit more happy. "You know, they have a saying about this kind of things on the Lunacorns."

Kowalski glanced at Private like he was already doubting the significance of a quote uttered on the penguin's favorite television show. Knowing he should at least hear his smaller friend out he offered a halfhearted, "What?"

"They always say, 'Open your mind and heart and you'll see that there is much more to the world than meets the eye.' Maybe you should try that some time."

Kowalski did nothing other than snort. What could Private possibly mean by quoting something so irrelevant and vague? Did the small bird mean that he needed to open his brain via surgery just to understand more about the universe? Preposterous, to say the least.

The intellectual didn't even see his younger teammate's downcast look. It had been only a snort; a gesture that could have been interpreted in many ways. The round bird distinguished it as though Kowalski was simply ignoring the statement entirely. Before the bird could say another word, however, Skipper's commanding bark was heard from the fishbowl hatch.

"Last time I checked, being five minutes late for briefing resulted in double maintenance duty for a month. I'll overlook this small mistake if you double-time it down here."

Kowalski heard the fishbowl lid click behind him. He had been dreading this evening for some time now. Skipper's paranoia was in overdrive and he was about to send them on a cross-country rampage for no solid reason. What upset the tall penguin even more was how he was planning on doing it.

"C'mon, K'walski," Private beckoned from the fishbowl.

The tall bird emitted a low groan as he pushed himself up from where he was sitting, then made his way down into the HQ. There Skipper and Rico were already sitting around their card table. Private pushed up a fourth chair as Skipper gestured to the remaining, empty one.

"Now that we're all here," Skipper began with a slightly opprobrious tone, making Kowalski frown and cross his flippers. "Let's discuss exactly what's going to be going down tonight."

The flat-headed leader gestured to the map that laid out on the table in front of him. "Now, as you boys are aware, we have sufficient evidence to believe that Blowhole has moved his base of operations from Coney Island to Ceder Bluff in western Kansas. Kowalski, explain it to me again."

The tall bird nodded before producing a clipboard from under the table and flipping through a few pages. "We always knew the dolphin would eventually need more room to develop his weapons without detection from the humans. Thanks to that lobster that we _interrogated_ yesterday I feel that we've pinpointed where he's setting up base. The fish hatchery in Ceder Bluff provides him with a massive food supply and the reservoir there supports his need for a water source."

"Right," Skipper confirmed, "and with that kind of space, food, and privacy there's no telling what he'll be able to create. We need to hit him while he's weak," Skipper paused for a moment to signify his point by pounding his flippers together menacingly, "and that means that we'll be leaving tonight."

Private looked a little startled by this statement. "How are we supposed to get all the way to Kansas in one night, Skippah?"  
The buff penguin smiled as though he was waiting to answer that question for a long while. "We're going to try something we haven't done since France, boys; we're going to hijack a plane."

Kowalski cleared his throat. "May I remind you, sir, that hijacking a plane full of humans is too risky and that it would be much safer to stow away in the cargo hold?"  
The leader looked disappointed. "Unfortunately for us, you're right. I can still call it hijacking if I want to, though."

"Is the plane going to land nearby the destination?" Private asked.

"No," the leader responded quickly but smiled again. "For that part I'll let Kowalski explain."

Kowalski nodded and requested a moment to grab what he had been developing for the last two weeks from his lab. He pushed the door open and turned the light on, grimacing on how messy the place was. Normally he would always keep his chemicals tidy and his tools clean and put away, but lately he had let the place fall into disrepair. He didn't like it; it made it hard to work and even harder to find things when he was looking for them.

After a minute he found what he was looking for underneath a rather disorderly pile of papers. He picked up the four tightly bundled packs and put two under each wing. It wasn't hard to replicate the humans' basic structure for a parachute, but Skipper had requested a better way for them to steer themselves on the way down. For that reason he implemented two wings for each of them, not unlike the ones they used when they propelled themselves into the sky with soda.

The other modification that Kowalski had made, this time without Skipper's recommendation, were safety ties between each parachute. Since they would be plummeting from a plane moving upwards of five hundred miles per hour in pure darkness, Kowalski knew that they would have to keep track of each other somehow. What better way then simply tying each each parachute to the next one?

Testing had proven useless. The highest thing they had to jump off of without being noticed by the humans was the zoo's clock tower, and that barely gave room for the parachutes to open before they hit the ground. From what Kowalski had seen, however, the wings were unable to overcome the drag force of the parachute and steer them and the ties never came into use.

That was just another limit he had to face. Physics and chemistry just couldn't be overcome by innovation. Ideas such as the wings and the ties weren't practical. Despite the fact that he spent so much work designing the parachutes, Kowalski didn't feel connected to them in any other way than the fact that they were simple objects as he exited his lab and returned to the briefing.

He set one parachute in front of each penguin and then sat back down. "We will be jumping from the aforementioned aircraft mid-flight when we near our destination of Wakeeney, Kansas. These will prevent us from plummeting to our dooms, and when we are on the ground it should be a simple scouting mission to locate Blowhole's new lair."

"Excellent, Kowalski," Skipper remarked. "What do you call these modified parachutes?"  
Kowalski frowned. "Parachutes?"

"Yeah, what do you call them?"

The intellectual sighed. "Parachutes. I call them ordinary parachutes."

"Didn't you make the modifications I requested?" the leader pestered.

"Of course."

"Then why don't you have some creative name for these?"

The tall bird shrugged. "They're just parachutes. The only special thing about them is the fact that they are penguin-sized."

Skipper arched a brow, sensing the disinterest in Kowalski's words. Kowalski was just about to push the meeting forward to avoid his leader's gaze when Private said, "Let's call them 'angel wings'."

The flat-headed penguin turned to his recruit and smiled. "That's what I'm talking about," he praised. "Now, Kowalski," he said, turning back to the strategist. "Are we clear to jump tonight?"  
Kowalski nodded. He flipped to another page on his clipboard and set it over the map, showing everyone the meteorological patterns he had drawn. "We should have smooth sailing all the way to our destination."

"That's what I like to see," Skipper said, then turned to his explosives expert. "Rico, are we armed and dangerous?"

Rico tapped his stomach and made a sound like cocking a gun. "Uh-huh," he wheezed.

Skipper grabbed his parachute from the table and strapped it on his back. "Our flight leaves in an hour. Operation Housewarming-Party is a-go!"

Kowalski frowned as he picked up his own pair of what were now dubbed angel wings and saw the other two penguins smile excitedly at their own. Such a simple item, a parachute. Why were they impressed?

* * *

"I've got movement," Kowalski said into his radio that Rico had given him. He was sitting in a potted plant at John F Kennedy Airport watching two security guards lazily stroll down the terminal. He peered through its leaves, holding his binoculars with one flipper. "You've got two blue jays on your left, stay down. I repeat, stay down. Over."

"Rodger that, over," came Skipper's voice.

"Hold position," Kowalski instructed as the two security guards took a seat on one of the benches there. Besides them, they had an opening to sneak through to the luggage handling area of the airport. When they got there it would be a simple task to get onto their plane. The opportunity they had was closing, however, as a family of humans rounded a corner and started heading their way. Kowalski glanced back to the security guards and realized they weren't planning on moving anytime soon.

"Skipper, we're going to need a smokescreen at the north end, over."

"Affirmative. Rico, sleep time, over."

A quite sound of hacking was heard over the radio and then mere seconds later a small canister bounced into the terminal from under a bench. It immediately grabbed the attention of all of security guards and the family coming. They all approached it but before they had time to inspect it, it promptly emitted pink gas. The humans coughed and sputtered and tried to run away from it but it didn't help anything. It was Kowalski's special concoction; less than a microgram of the stuff entered their bloodstream and they instantly hit the ground snoring.

"Great work," Skipper congratulated, "now let's get going. Momma Bird isn't going to be in the nest much longer, over."

"Rodger, over," Kowalski responded then left the cover of his plant.

After they regrouped just inside the baggage handling area of the plane the penguins made their way for a cart that was making its way out onto the tarmac. Following Skipper's orders, they lunged from a nearby conveyer belt and landed safely inside the stack of suitcases before drawing the attention of any of the employees.

"Which bird is Momma Bird?" Skipper questioned his lieutenant as the impatient cart driver carelessly let several suitcases fall to the concrete in his hurry to get them delivered to the proper plane.

Kowalski glanced around, looking for the Airbus he had located upon their first arrival. He located it not far from where they were and noted the fact that the cart they were on was transporting them directly to it. "Twelve o'clock," he responded.

"Holy mackerel, this was far easier than I thought it would be," Skipper commented, leaning back against the suitcases and putting his flippers behind his head. "Remember how difficult it was to hijack that ship we took to Antarctica? We should use a plane the next time we want to go there." He shot up to glare at Private. "And not use the submarine to come rescue teammates from leopard seals."

"Err, is this time really appropriate?" Private responded awkwardly.

"All times are appropriate to reprimand your private, Private," Skipper explained, settling back down into the suitcases. At that moment the cart they were riding made a sharp left turn and all of the penguins became aware of the fact that they were no longer on a direct course to their destination.

The leader penguin was already prepared to vault over the edge of the cart and without any vocal communication the other three followed him. Not wasting their forward momentum the penguins slid forward across the tarmac towards their destination. Their only cover from being seen by the humans at this point was their agility. Before long they reached the back of the plane and managed to slip in just before the cargo door automatically shut.

"I should have known that it wouldn't be so easy," Skipper huffed when they were safely concealed once again. "Those humans are just too unpredictable. Does everyone have their angel wings?"  
Kowalski pulled the straps of his parachute a bit tighter. The straps themselves were of a strange design. A little something Kowalski had designed because typical human backpacks didn't quite fit penguin anatomy. The straps were closer together and were still supported on their backs despite the fact that they lacked shoulders. It wasn't special, but without it they'd never be able to wear such a vital component to their operation.

"Affirmative," he responded after he had finished inspecting the straps for damages from sliding. Private and Rico gave their confirmations as well.

"Good. Let's get this bird in the air!" Skipper commanded, fist-pumping into the air. Nobody moved, and instead the four glanced at eachother awkwardly.

"Uh, Skipper," Kowalski announced after a moment. "We're not actually in control of the plane this time."

"Blast!" the leader cursed. "So what do we do while we wait for Momma Bird to take us to the drop zone?"

"We could sing the Lunacorn theme song," suggested Private.

"No!" The other three birds shouted in unison.

* * *

It didn't take long for Kowalski to grow bored. He usually found himself in this sort of predicament when they ventured on missions that required an extended period of waiting. Without his lab to entertain him, even though it hadn't really been doing so lately, he found nothing better to do but sit on a suitcase and mentally prepare himself for the jump ahead.

It hadn't occurred to him until they boarded the plane that they were actually jumping from around thirty-thousand feet; twice the maximum proven safe height. The air would probably be dangerously thin and icy cold at that altitude. He cursed himself under his breath for not thinking about that sooner. Perhaps he had been too preoccupied with the angel wings themselves to worry about oxygen tanks and insulation.

"What do you think about the plane, K'walski?" Private asked, jarring the tall bird from his musing. Kowalski hadn't seen his round friend take a seat on a suitcase next to him and acknowledged him with a simple nod.

"What about it?" he questioned.

"I mean, it's a pretty amazing feat of science and engineering, isn't it?" Private speculated.

"It uses forward velocity to force air currents under its wings and push it upwards, Private. It's not that incredible."

"Maybe not to you," the small bird responded, "but to someone who never saw anything like it in their lives it would be amazing. They'd be like, 'it must way a bazillion tons, how is it staying up there?'"

Kowalski looked away from the bird's hopeful looking face and towards Rico, who was going over a variety of weapons with Skipper. Perhaps it was an incredible thing for a thirty-five thousand pound plane full of people to be lifted into the air with such ease. Surely when it was invented, nobody thought it was possible. But that was just the problem.

"There are many inventions in our world to attempt to make use of the limits we are given, Private. There are just no more limits to be discovered."

"I think we should always push limits," argued the small bird. "because usually you'll find that you can break them. Remember that quote from the Lunacorns?"

Kowalski pretended to look away, not wanting to reference that childish show again. He picked up his clipboard and pretended to be preoccupied for a moment by scrutinizing the map. "Oh, it seems that we are approaching our drop zone," he announced loud enough for Skipper and Rico to hear. Private looked a little downcast for a moment, but nodded solemnly and picked up his pair of angel wings.

"Hot dog!" Skipper exclaimed. "Let's move out!"

The four of them prepared their angel wings by slipping the flimsy wooden appendages over their flippers and strapping the packs tightly on their backs. Then they moved towards the cargo hatch, ready to plummet back down to the earth. "Alright, when we pop this thing some alarm is going to go off in the cockpit and the humans will be here in no time to investigate. We need to move like the wind. Am I understood?"  
"Aye, sir," Kowalski responded with the others.

"Rico, commence operation: Peel the Can," the leader instructed. "Go, go, go!"

The heavyset bird wasted no time in regurgitating his favorite weapon of destruction and immediately put it to work on gnawing at the thin metal of the plane's hull. Sparks flew everywhere and the sound of Rico laughing hysterically was the only thing audible over the grinding of metal on metal. Seconds later Rico had made a hole big enough for them to jump through, and with one last kick he pushed the flimsy metal into the storm.

The storm? Kowalski immediately grabbed his clipboard and looked over his maps. The human's meteorology reports hadn't called for storms, and neither had his own calculations. There must have been something wrong; were they in the wrong place?"

Skipper had the same thing on his mind. "Kowalski, what's going on?" He was nearly inaudible over the sound of the thunder that was now rocking the entire plane. They were over the storm clouds—saving them from the rain—but they laid directly in their path of trajectory.

A few seconds of exhausting possibilities later and Kowalski knew he screwed up. They were passing directly over Ceder Bluff and in a few moments they would miss their opportunity. The storm was not predicted. He informed this to Skipper and was frightened at the depth of his scowl.

"When we get back, Kowalski, you are doing maintenance for a month. For now, we need to jump! I hope for your sake that you made these angel wings durable!"

Kowalski knew their chance was fading. If they didn't jump now they were going to end up in some city they weren't familiar with and they would be far from Blowhole, giving the diabolical dolphin more time to prepare. Without another word he took the retractable clip from the front of each of the pack and strapped them to each other, ensuring the quartet was not separated by the gale-force winds.

"Clear for takeoff, Skipper," the scientist lied.

The four of them lined up at the entrance to the plane. Kowalski's heart was racing, and he was sure his teammates' were as well. "On the count of three," Skipper instructed over a crack of thunder.

"One." Private shifted oddly in his place. Rico grunted

"Two." Kowalski mindlessly inspected the clip on the front of his pack again with his flipper. The material was thick and sturdy, but holding on by a thread... wait, that wasn't right.

"Three. Jump!" Skipper cried right as Kowalski looked down at the torn connector where he connected to Private.

"No!" He pleaded but it was too late. The momentum from the other three birds' jumps launched him into the frigid air, gravity pulling him back down to the surface of the earth.

The tall bird's vision was spinning but he barely managed to make out the shapes of three connected penguins above him. He reached for where he was still supposed to be clipped to Private and felt only a loose strand of fabric there.

"Kowalski!" Private screamed over the roar of the storm and the plane engine. "Kowalski, use your wings!"

The bird's warning was enough to snap Kowalski back into control of his limbs. He extended his wings to help slow his decent, but the jerk from the air resistance was unexpectedly strong. Kowalski's vision was jarred and he lost track of where his teammates were.

"Push it down, men! He's just below us!" Skipper barked. Kowalski looked above him to see his teammates closing in fast. He did as he had trained the others: extended his wings and feet as to slow his decent just a little further so the others could catch him.

"Almost there!" Private observed. The three birds, with their wings withdrawn and their bodies like pencils to help them fall faster. Kowalski saw Private at the same altitude now, shaking his wings slightly to help match Kowalski's speed. The small bird gently maneuvered forward, growing ever closer to Kowalski.

"We've got you," Private shouted. He extended his wing, and though the motion pushed him up further, Kowalski managed to grab hold of it.

When they were secure, Private extended his clip to his teammate once more and Kowalski gracefully accepted it. Right as he was about to try to find another place to clip it, however, they entered the storm clouds.

The sudden gust of wind was unexpected and ripped Private and Kowalski's flipper's apart. "Kowalski!" the scientist heard the small bird cry out, but they were already hopelessly separated and in the darkness of the clouds it was impossible for Kowalski to see anything.

He attempted to stabilize himself but that only resulted in him tumbling head over heals through the storm cloud. A lighting strike went off nearby him and the thunder crack deafened him. Unsure of what to do, he gently tried to stabilize his fall. Each time he managed to gain some control, however, a gust of wing send him spiraling once more.

_Blast, why didn't I inspect the connections better_? He thought. _They're just parachutes, easy to inspect and maintain..._

Another crack of thunder tore away his thoughts. He was below the clouds now and could see twinkling lights on the ground indicating that in a minute or so he was going to be a pancake instead of a bird. He was low enough that he could see the rain rising above him... no, that wasn't right. It was because he was descending faster than the rain, causing an illusion that it was actually falling in reverse...

A third, massive rumble of thunder got his mind back on the situation. He looked all around for his teammates but because of his tumbling and the dark rain he wasn't able to see anything. They could have been blown a mile away by now, he realized. He was on his own.

How low was he supposed to go before he pulled the cord to open the parachute? He was pretty sure that time had passed. But if he pulled it now it was likely that he would be struck by lighting, so he let himself plummet further before acting. Finally he managed to level himself, using his wings to slow his fall a little and had a good look at the ground.

Where should he land? A body of water would be ideal. From what he could see, there were nothing of the sort nearby; that meant he was a long ways from Ceder Bluff. The land below him looked like nothing but a bunch of farm fields and roads that were growing ever larger as his impending doom made itself known.

He tightened his flipper on his pull-cord, readying himself for the force that was sure to come from opening the parachute. He couldn't have been more than five-thousand feet from the ground, but he was going to push it even lower. If his parachute caught fire from a lightening strike he would be in a lot more trouble than hitting the ground a little harder than normal.

He managed to get a stable grip on the wind and when he was nearly close enough to the ground to make out some farmhouses, he pulled the cord. The material shot up into the air, immediately grabbing the wind with it and yanking Kowalski with such force that it made his head spin. Before he realized what happened he was already dangerously close to a field of wheat, ready to swallow up his compressed body when he hit the ground.

He pulled his legs up like he had shown the others when he finally reached the ground. It was not nearly as hard as he thought it would be but he still bounced a little bit. He immediately was pulled backward by his rouge parachute which was taking advantage of the wind gusts. He was sent into a roll, tangling himself up in the parachute cord while it threatened to pull him back off the ground.

Knowing he had to do something before he inevitably was, he reached for the emergency release and clicked it. Thankful to hear that it was still functional, the parachute spiraled into the air with the force of the wind as he was left in the mud, his heart racing, mind spinning, and flippers throbbing.

_It was just a parachute, _he thought. _So easy to maintain_.

A lightening strike nearby him reminded him that he wasn't completely safe yet. He glanced around him for shelter and before the light faded again he saw a little shack. It couldn't have been more than a tool shed, and it was the only thing he could see that might keep him safe from the storm.

He pushed through, the rain pelting his face, until he reached the flimsy metal shed. Kowalski had no idea how it was still standing but he was glad it was. He reached for the door was ecstatic that it opened. The scientist shoved it closed behind him, finally escaping from the rain and the wind.

He brushed some water off of his flippers and then looked around. It was dark, but he knew the shed was made of some flimsy scrap metal and wooden two-by-fours. How was it still standing against the wind that was raging outside? It didn't make any sense to him. He took a few steps forward to see if there was anything that could dry his feathers when his feet didn't hit the ground.

It was the kind of feeling he'd remember getting when he was walking down stairs and thought he was on the bottom stair when he really wasn't. Unexpected free fall. There was some type of dark hole in the ground, and it was deep. Kowalski was plummeting for the second time in only a few minutes, except this time it was into the bowels of the Earth and he didn't have his parachute.

But he still had his wings! Thinking quickly he extended them and slowed his decent just in time for him to emerge into what looked like a bottomless pit. At least for this fall he wasn't being shoved around by the wind, and he could make out his surroundings.

Below him were what looked like massive spheres, each one above the next one all the way down as far as he could see. Along the sides of the giant silo were catwalks, doors, windows, and functional lights. Kowalski suddenly realized that he fell into some kind of a facility or factory... but why would it be underground?  
Snapping his mind back to the task at hand, he maneuvered forward and attempted to reach the first of the large spheres. Hoping he could use it's sloped surface to break his fall without doing excessive damage to his being, he slowed himself down the best he could and prepared to hold on for dear life when he hit the hard surface.

And it was hard. Harder than he expected, and he had been moving faster than he calculated. Immediately he heard the clang of his beak against the metal, felt pain, and saw black spots begin to cloud his vision. His flippers scrambled for something to hold on to, but they found nothing but smoothness. With his consciousness waning, Kowalski slipped off the side of the sphere and began his final plummet of the evening; this time surely resulting in a penguin-pancake.

The last thing Kowalski saw before he completely lost his cognitive abilities was a metal claw emerging from the shadows.


	2. Part II

**Impetuous Acumen  
**A Penguins of Madagascar/Portal Crossover

**Part II**

* * *

**KOWALSKI'S BUNK FELT STRAGELY SOFT.**

He never really minded the cold concrete of the headquarters, but it felt like he was laying on a cloud. He wriggled around slightly in his early morning stupor and felt a blanket at least an inch thick nearby. A pillow, far softer than the rugged one he was used to, was behind his head. It didn't make any sense; more comfortable beds had been the number one request by him, Private, and Rico for years and Skipper had never fulfilled it, so why now?

He sat up slowly, feeling a dull pain in his head and rubbing his temples. His ears were ringing but his hearing slowly returned, greeting his ears with a foreign, happy tune that must have been coming through a radio. Sipper usually denounced music in the HQ, especially in the early morning hours, and Kowalski normally didn't mind that fact. Today was no exception. His head throbbed dully with every little tick and beat of the music. He hadn't bothered to open his eyes yet, but it was maddening.

"Can you please turn off that music, Skipper?" he requested. There was no response and the music continued playing. _Maybe they're outside training_, thought Kowalski, _and perhaps I've been left inside to recuperate after my fall._

Rubbing his eyes, he finally opened them and became aware of the fact that he wasn't in the HQ at all. With the memories of the previous night flooding back to him, he looked at his surroundings. The room he was in was bright and he shielded his eyes, unable to make out much around him. Immediately, however, he became aware that he wasn't in the comfort of the headquarters after all. He hadn't been sleeping in his bunk; rather a human-sized bed with a bedspread white enough to satisfy a hospital's requirements.

He lifted his flippers and inspected them. His angel wings were gone and his body looked in top shape. What exactly happened after he lost consciousness?

He hopped out of the strange bed, his heart skipping a beat. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was the dread of realizing he was about to die and seeing that huge mechanical claw emerge from the wall. Was he dead? _That can't be true. I must still be dreaming._

Glancing around he saw he was in what looked like fairly large box made of fogged glass. He immediately made his way for the door and was disappointed to see that it didn't have a handle. He searched for some other way to open it and was astonished to see that it didn't have a single crevice or crack where it would slide or bend to open. _Perhaps it is a wall and not a door_, he realized.

Behind him was a table with a human-sized clipboard and a coffee mug not unlike one Skipper would use. If it had a fish tail in it, maybe he would have believed for a minute that this was all some ploy by leader bird himself. The only other thing in the room was a human-sized toilet. Upon seeing that there was no water in it Kowalski realized it was one of the vacuum toilets the humans used on their airplanes and would be useless as an escape route.

One quick spin on the spot and Kowalski realized that there was going to be no easy way out of his current predicament. He would need to wait and figure out exactly why he was in such a strange place, and more importantly, how he got into a room of solid glass with no door. Was the room built around him? He thought it might be.

He peered around once more and managed to catch sight of a timer that was just outside the glass. He was never able to read human writing but their system of numbers was second nature to him. He saw that it was counting down from about a minute, but for what? Was it linked to a bomb? The millions of questions and uncertainties swirling in his head caused him to mindlessly begin scribbling down notes with the attached pencil.

"Hello," began a computerized female voice from seemingly nowhere, making Kowalski jump halfway out of his skin, "and welcome to the Aperture... oh, right. You're a penguin. You won't understand I word I say anyway. Regardless, I should inform you that in light of recent events we have suspended our stasis wing and have instead began storing subjects in appointed cells. If you found your cell to be at all uncomfortable, please leave your feedback now."

A tiny pause, just enough for Kowalski to tap his beak and try to process where the voice was coming from.

"As expected, all facilities are acceptable. Now, please stand back as the portal will open in three, two, one..."

Kowalski had to rub his eyes to make sure he was really seeing what happened next. An orange elliptical opening formed on the wall he inspected earlier, emitting an eerie glow. Moments later the cloudy center of the portal disappeared and it was as though he was looking straight through the wall and into the room beyond his cell.

He waddled slowly up to the portal and inspected its edges. At first the scientist bird thought it was just some well-disguised, mechanical device on the wall from with the opening had appeared, but now he saw it was far more advanced. It was as though the light around the portal itself was bending and emerging on the other side. Carefully he stuck his flipper through and was amazed to feel that it met no resistance. He pushed his flipper near the wispy orange edges of the portal and, though it was a little warm, he felt the smooth edge of the wall there like it was a clean cut. _It's like its a tear in space and time itself... but how is it stable? _he wondered.

The voice sounded again, making him jump once more. "Aperture science policy states the subject does not show the capacity to complete tests, they will be released immediately. I don't follow Aperture science policy much anymore, so I'll just dispose of you in five, four..."

Kowalski looked up as a grinding sound came from above him. There he saw that the ceiling was being lowered, and at an alarming rate. Horrified, he looked around for somewhere that he might be safe from it. Under the bed? In a corner the descending platform didn't cover?

"three, two..."

The portal, of course! Kowalski lunged forward with all of his weight, expecting to hit a solid wall just beyond the mysterious energy. Instead he flew right through the opening and hit a hard floor on the other side, sliding a bit. He got up and spun his head around just in time to see an identical portal, this one blue, closing on the wall he had just jumped through.

"Congratulations. You have shown the ample capacity to flee in a time of flight. You coward. Please proceed to the docking and staging area to receive your long-fall boots and then we can begin testing."

Kowalski was still staring wide-eyed at the portal that just closed before him. He couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of technology was behind it. In front of him was the cell he was just in, and he realized that he just didn't go through the wall he jumped through, he emerged from a different wall entirely. It was like his molecular reatomization teleporter, but the transition had been far less turbulent. There had been that shimmer in the light, too. _Just like the time machine_, he realized.

The penguin looked at his surroundings a bit and realized he was in a short hallway with what looked like sliding doors at the end. There were no other entrances or exits, not even a window. The bright, white light came from overhead and the concrete walls and floor looked impenetrable.

_Is this some kind of ploy by Blowhole to extract information from me or learn more about us penguins?_ Kowalski pondered. With the idea that he might be a prisoner on his mind, he looked at the situation differently. Skipper would tell him that any tool is invaluable as a prisoner of war, and as such he grabbed the clipboard he had jumped through the portal with. Using the stretchy string the pen was attached to it with he put it over his back and proceeded to the doorway with caution.

_There's nothing to do but play along for now_, he thought.

When he approached the door it slid open as he expected. A motion detector and a few well-greased motors would make that happen, though. What he was really concerned with was that portal. He could still see the orange reflection in his eyes. So surreal, filling him with curiosity. That curiosity was pushing him forward now as he entered an almost pitch-black room.

"Please attach one Aperture Science long-fall boot firmly to each foot, and ensure that there are no weak points in its fabrication," the female voice instructed.

The lights switched on at that moment, revealing a tiny room. From the ground came a platform with two human-sized boots standing on it, stabilized by a little holder. Kowalski immediately realized that just one of them was nearly as big of his entire being. He waddled up to it and hit it with his flipper, knocking it over.

Wondering what he was supposed to do with the overly-large boots, he looked around the room. Surprisingly he located a camera near one of the top corners. It looked just like the kind of surveillance camera that could be found at any grocery store, but it seemed to follow his every movement.

_Am I being watched? _He pondered.

Maybe if he was, whoever was on the other end of the camera could send him some properly-sized boots, since it didn't seem like he was getting out of the room until he put them on. That could rule out Blowhole as the one who trapped him there, since he'd know that Kowalski would need boots his size, but it didn't mean the dolphin didn't hire an inexperienced bounty hunter or something.

Suddenly a little fearful, Kowalski waved his flippers over his head and nearly shouted, "I need smaller boots!"

There was a slight pause before the monotonic female voice returned, "Even though the animal testing initiative of 1975 was the whole reason I was programmed to rescue you in the first place, that doesn't mean that I was given penguin-to-human speech capabilities. I speak 6,234 of the 6,683 modern languages, however penguin is not one of them."

Kowalski tapped his beak, wondering how he could overcome the ability to communicate with the mysterious computerized voice. Realizing he had brought the clipboard and pen from the first chamber he was in, he slid it off of his back and began to draw.

A few seconds later he held up a drawing of a penguin and a boot with arrows to show that the boot was bigger than the penguin so that the camera could see it. After a moment the ground opened near the human-sized boots again and they disappeared into the dark abyss below. Then two new boots appeared, this time small enough and formed right to fit over Kowalski's webbed feet.

"Good thing Cave Johnson was such a smooth talker, otherwise we'd never have gotten the investment money to develop these. Go ahead, try them on. They've never been tested yet but I'm sure you'll make a good blind trial."

Kowalski nodded to the camera and slid the clipboard back over his back. Cave Johnson? He was pretty sure he had heard that name before, but he couldn't remember where. He was definitely beginning to grow doubtful that Blowhole had anything to do with where he was currently stuck, however. _Until more things become clear, I should make sure to keep following whatever that voice is telling me_, he realized.

The boots slid on surprisingly easy for their complicated design. They were sleek and white and barely covered the heel of Kowalski's foot, making them look more like futuristic sandals than boots. A metal tongue ran up the side of the boot ending just before the penguin's plumage began. When it was on snug it snapped shut, making the scientist jump. It didn't feel uncomfortable but definitely wasn't going anywhere. He hopped up and put some weight on the boots; it really didn't feel any different than without.

The robot voice sounded again. "Good, you've got the boots on. You've already progressed further than ninety-nine percent of other animal test subjects. Congratulations. Now, remember what I said about that blind trial? Make sure you land on your feet."

Before Kowalski could contemplate what it was referencing to the floor instantly dropped out from below him and he was launched into his third free fall of only a short time. He let out a cry of surprise as he saw lights and moving panels whiz by. He managed to catch a glimpse of the ground growing quickly below him.

_Make sure you land on your feet_. Kowalski did as he was told by using his flippers to gently upright himself. By the time he was prepared to impact with the ground he was seconds from it, making his heart skip a beat. He closed his eyes, wondering what it was going to be like to have his spinal column pierce his brain...

And apparently, it wasn't painful. A shock wave rocked his form and the sound of his feet colliding with the tiles below him sounded powerful enough, but there was no pain. He opened his eyes again and realized he was standing just fine in another small room with only one door. Above him a roof had already retracted, hiding the length of his fall.

He glanced down at his boots in amazement as the door slid open in front of him. "There is only one more piece of equipment you need," the female voice instructed, "an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. One of proper size has been pried from the squirrel who attempted to use it last and was seared by its static discharge. Of course, this problem has been corrected and now the device is once more safe to use."

The door led to the next room which was as dark and small as the one before it. This time, however, in the middle of the room there was a little pillar with a strange looking device hovering just over it. Kowalski inspected it closely, realizing it didn't look that much unlike an ant or a similar insect. The large back of the device looked like an abdomen and the claw on the front looked like feelers.

"Go on, take it," the voice prompted. "You animals are always so much slower than humans. It's like you aren't as trusting as them."

Kowalski stretched out his flipper slowly, concerned about the static discharge that was mentioned before. His boots didn't insulate him from the floor in any way, so anything over a few amps of current flowing through his body would surely result in his demise. He glanced around the dark room again, looking for any possible alternative. Of course, there was none. So instead he gently grabbed the portal gun by its handle, realizing that it was surprisingly light. He held it securely as he looked it over, feeling the trigger on the inside of the handle.

"Good. Now to make sure you are physically and mentally capable of completing the upcoming tests, please use the portal gun to cross this moat of electrified hydrochloric acid. And, though you are a penguin and your primal instincts may tell you do such things, please do not swim in the electrified hydrochloric acid."

Suddenly the lights throughout the room turned out, showing Kowalski that it was considerably larger than he previously assumed. A few panels of the walls were finishing moving into place, showing him a few patches of smooth, white concrete. In front of him was the aforementioned pool of acid, probably twenty feet long with the surface of the acid a solid ten feet below Kowalski's platform. On the other side of the moat was the door, presumably the exit.

Kowalski looked down at the portal device again. _Can this device really make the portals I saw in the holding cell? _He wondered. He gingerly toyed with the trigger, sizing up the strange device in his hand. It was smooth and sleek, looking far too simple to be able to generate the energies that would be required to allow for intradementional teleportation. It took a thousand kilowatts just to transport that apple...

The intellectual accidentally depressed the trigger too far during his mechanical pondering, and the portal device activated. It shot a blue beam of light from its tip, the feeler-like appendages bent back to absorb some form of recoil that Kowalski didn't even feel. He gasped from surprise as a blue portal opened on the white concrete wall in front of him, identical to the one he had seen in his holding cell. He approached it gently ran his flipper along its edge.

_It's like it's bending time and space, but without a container to hold its immense energy,_ Kowalski realized. He then looked across the moat, understanding what he needed to do. He carefully aimed the portal device at a wall on the other side of the acid, and pressed the trigger. Again, the blue stream of light emerged from the device's tip. This time, however, it merely produced a poof of blue sparks when it hit the wall on the other side.

Kowalski tapped his beak thoughtfully before aiming another shot at the wall, this time directing the portal device at one of the white concrete spots. As he was expecting, the oval portal appeared on the wall. _Looks like not all surfaces conduct the portals,_ he thought to himself.

He turned to enter the portal he had created on his side of the moat, and realized that it had vanished. He clicked the trigger again and a blue portal emerged in front of him, while the portal on the opposite side of the moat.

_There must be a way to construct one of those orange portals I witnessed earlier, _the penguin hypothesized. Gently setting the portal device down, he grabbed his clipboard and flipped open to a new page. He sketched two portals quickly, drawing an arrow entering one and a question mark on the other. Then, he held it up for the camera in the room to see.

"Protocol tells me that I'm not supposed to assist the test subjects," the voice sounded. "If I did, it wouldn't be a very good test, would it?"

Kowalski agreed by gently shaking his head. Rubbing the bottom of his beak, he looked over the portal device again. Running his flippers over it, he managed to find a tiny switch near the trigger. He flicked it and a blue light he hadn't noticed before faded to orange. Smiling to himself, he created the secondary portal on the opposite side of the moat and watched as the two became linked, looking as if they were windows into other dimensions.

He put his clipboard back over his shoulders and cautiously stepped through the portal, being careful not to come too close to its edges. He still wasn't sure exactly what kinds of energy he was playing with and wasn't interested in becoming roasted by a megawatt of electricity. When he was safely on the other side of the moat, the door slid open.

"Congratulations," the voice offered with a satirical tone in her voice. "You're the first animal to successfully show the mental capacity to complete tests. Enter the elevator in front of you and we can begin the real testing. Unlike previous models, this one has shown 40% capacity to not plummet you to your doom."

The simple, cylindrical elevator was glass on all sides, and the door was already waiting for Kowalski to enter. A quick glance around the room showed the intellectual that taking the elevator and continuing with the robotic voice's charade was his only option.

As he stepped onto the elevator, he became aware of the fact that he still didn't know exactly where he was, or where his teammates were. He had seen all three of them violently ripped away from him in that storm. They could have been carried miles away... or worse...

A gentle shake shook those thoughts from his head. _I can worry about that when I get out of here_, he told himself. _The real question I should be asking myself is: where in Einstein's trousers am I?_

Before he even realized the doors before him had slid closed, the elevator lurched to a start. It began moving upwards and a ludicrous speed, making the tall penguin nearly loose his balance. As quickly as it started, however, it stopped and opened in a nearly identically looking room.

"Welcome to your first test. As per your your earlier request, everything has been properly penguin-sized. However, please be aware that things will be no less deadly," the monotonous voice told him.

Waddling forward, Kowalski came through another sliding door and into his first test chamber. On the wall a panel lit up, revealing a few strange images that Kowalski couldn't immediately recognize. There was an image of some type of a cube hitting a man in the head, and also one of a pool of water with sparks arcing across its surface. _That must be the electrified hydrochloric acid_, he realized.

The voice spoke again, tearing Kowalski from his thoughts. "Because you've shown sluggish performance throughout so far (probably because you're just a penguin), this test has another factor. The electrified hydrochloric acid in this room will be steadily rising."

On cue, a pipe emerged from behind a moving panel and began pumping more of the deadly liquid into the already half-full trench in the middle of the room. Feeling his heart rate accelerate, Kowalski began to ponder his options. For the most part the room he was in now looked identical to the previous one, except this one had an extra, clear pipe coming from the ceiling and what appeared to be a giant-sized button near the door.

Realizing all he had to do was cross the moat again, Kowalski quickly formed a portal near himself and on the opposite side of the room. Less cautiously than before, partly because he trusted the stability of the portals and mostly because he was terrified of the quickly rising acid level. He waddled up to the door and scowled when it didn't open for him.

He spun around, looking for alternative ways out. Of course, he was sealed in just like the other rooms. _This makes no sense! _He complained. _Why doesn't this door have the same protocol as the previous one? Unless..._

The straggly penguin waddled over to the button and jumped onto it, hearing a satisfied click as it was depressed. A green check-mark appeared near the door, and it slid open. He smiled, stepping off of the button to get away from the horrible acid. Unfortunately, the moment he did, the door slammed in his face.

Startled and growing more panicked, he looked around the room one more time. His eyes found the clear tube coming out of the ceiling near the entryway and a little red button he didn't notice before. He hurried back through his portals and towards it, eager to see if it would stop the flow of acid.

The button made a strange tone as though it was acknowledging that it had been pressed, and Kowalski closely watched to see if the deadly liquid would stop pouring into the trench. Instead, he cried out in surprise when he was hit in the head by something fairly heavy, knocking him over.

"There is no previous data on record to show that penguins are prone to letting weighted storage cubes fall on their heads so now you've proven they have a failure rate of one-hundred percent. I would say you've accomplished something significant if you weren't shaming your entire species."

Kowalski rubbed where the box had hit him, scowling at the robotic voice. He looked down at the storage cube which was about half of his size. _That must be used to hold the button down so I can get out_, he concluded. A quick glance to the acid levels, which had grown dangerously close to the top of the trench, and he acknowledged that he needed to hurry.

He reached for the cube and tried to lift it, along with his portal device, but it was heavy and bulky. In the end he started dragging it towards the portal to the exit when, by chance, he pointed the device at it. As if there was some kind of magnetic attraction between the gun and it, the cube began to levitate in the air just in front of the portal gun. Kowalski noted the fact that it seemed almost weightless. _Has this device mastered levitation technology?_ Kowalski wondered.

"Acid levels have nearly reached peak. You had better hope your feathers are acid-proof, as well as water-proof," the voice said.

Not even bothering to look at how close he was to dissolving into penguin soup, Kowalski ran for the portal. Diving through and not even caring how the portal device was so easily able to keep the box upright even as it hit the edges of the portal itself, Kowalski dashed for the button. The portal device then automatically released the cube as he held it over the button, allowing the door to be opened. The acid was just breaching the edges of the trench it had been filling as they closed behind him.

"Well done," said the voice. "You've successfully doubled the slowest time of any human or robot test subjects. Proceed in the elevator to your next test.

Kowalski scowled, realizing that the tests were going to go on for some time. And, based on the fact that he was both receiving so many insults and was being put in life-threatening situations, he had concluded that Blowhole was for some reason toying with him. _Perhaps he's using me to test out his new technologies,_ Kowalski considered. _If so, that's a big mistake on his part._

Immediately he began to formulate an escape plan. He had boots that seemed to let him fall any distance, and a portal gun that let him teleport across impossible gaps. If only he could find a way to break out of one of the sealed rooms he had been traveling between, maybe he'd be able to find a way out. Then he'd be able to meet up with his team once more.

_Hopefully they're alright_...

He shook his mind again. If Skipper taught him anything, it was that worrying makes a soldier distracted, and thereby weak. Right now he needed his wits about him. A quick mental recap of everything he remembered helped him conclude that he was still some distance underground. That meant his only way out was up, and that was just where the elevators were taking him.

_Maybe after I get out of here I'll have Rico destroy it for me_, he thought as the sliding glass doors closed before him.


	3. Part III

**Impetuous Acumen  
**A Portal/Penguins of Madagascar Crossover

**Part III**

* * *

**THE ELEVATOR CAME TO A GENTLE STOP, AND THE DOORS SLID OPEN.**

The room Kowalski emerged into was just like any of the previous elevator stations he had been in already, except this time the circular walls seemed to make some sort of display. On it was a little animation of a cartoon-like human figure being posed with a long stretch of monkey bars over a pit of the all-to-familiar hydrochloric acid. The little human hopped up and grabbed the bars. It traversed about half of the gap before ultimately slipping and descending out of view. Shortly thereafter, a monkey-like figure entered the same room and crossed the gap with great speed and agility. The animation began looping as Kowalski realized he had been watching it for some time.

"There were many reasons Cave Johnson wanted to test animals in addition to humans and robots," the monotonic voice said. "One of them is that animals sometimes have much better designs for certain tests." A slight pause. "Except for you. You can't even fly."

Kowalski gritted his beak and tightened his grip on the handle of his portal gun. Completely disregarding the insult, he couldn't help but feel a slight familiarity towards the name Cave Johnson. Where in the world had he heard that before? It almost felt like he knew the person his whole life, but just couldn't connect a face with a name. Giving his head a slight shake, he ventured forward and into the next room.

It was another test chamber, and the panel on the wall showed that this one wouldn't have a water hazard. Instead, another image was darkened, indicating something about a laser. Kowalski immediately became aware of what it was referencing as his eyes met with a thick red laser that looked like it could be hot enough to melt solid steel. In fact, he was pretty sure he saw little whips of vapor coming from the laser itself.

It was considerably above him and therefore out of his reach, but he made a mental note to come nowhere near touching it. He didn't want to add fatal searing to his list of almost-deaths since his arrival at the strange facility. The other half of the room showed a deep, empty pit and a higher column, on which the door was placed. Most of the surfaces in the room were the the material Kowalski recognized to be portal-conductive.

To his side, he saw another one of the cube dispenser tubes, except the button wasn't anywhere to be seen. After a moment of looking around Kowalski saw a tiny sliver of the big, red button over the edge of a separate column. To Kowalski's other side was one of the big, floor buttons. He waddled onto it and noticed how it disabled the laser. Glancing around, nothing was obvious to him. _How does Blowhole expect me to get all the way up there?_ He wondered, rubbing his beak and looking up at the column.

"I'm programmed to not be able to help you with any tests," said the female voice almost as if on cue, "but that doesn't mean I can't remind you of Newton's first law."

Kowalski looked around the room until he located the camera that was diligently following his every move. Whoever was on the other side of the camera just dropped him a hint. Blowhole certainly wasn't the type to do that, even though he always felt the need to explain his plans. Still, he thought over what was said with intimate curiosity, wondering what it could mean.

_Newton's first law, _he wondered. '_An object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by some outside force.' _ He glanced up at the column, and then peered over the edge of the pit before finally reaching down and using his free flipper to gently feel the side of one of his his long-fall boots. _That's the key_.

He placed a blue portal far below him on the floor of the pit, and then looked for a suitable location for the orange portal. He found it on the opposite wall from the door, slightly angled up so that his vertical momentum would be transferred to forward momentum in the most efficient way possible. The scientist aimed carefully and managed to open the orange portal.

He took a quick double take to make sure both portals were in place. Then he inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and jumped. Something forced his eyes to snap open again—undoubtedly the fact that he was now terrified of being in free-fall—and he looked down to make sure he was upright and still lined up with the blue portal below him. For once: everything was good. He was falling more than fast enough to launch himself from the orange portal, through the red laser, and...

...not through the red laser. _Anything but through the red laser!_ Kowalski could see the searing red light through his portal in the floor. If he continued this way he was going to be sliced in half. With only milliseconds to spare, he closed the blue portal by shooting another one on the wall in front of him. He hit the now solidified ground hard and fell, more because of the shakiness in his own legs than the force of the impact.

The feminine voice returned. "Some test subjects represent experimental group A in the fact that they are very keen to the obvious problems and less aware of the obscure solutions. The other test subjects are classified into experimental group B as they are the opposite of experimental group A."

Kowalski picked himself off the ground, dusting his feathers and looking up as though the source of the echoing voice was just above him, laughing from the edge of the pit. "I am going to classify you as the first of experimental group C since you don't seem to fit into either experimental group A, nor experimental group B. Also, you were adopted."

Kowalski was finding it ever increasingly hard to ignore the robotic voice's insults. He knew Skipper would be ashamed of that fact, so he tried to hide it, but the animosity was still growing. Attempting to clear his mind, he swiftly used the blue portal to get out of the pit and back onto the main area, where he could rethink his strategy.

The floor button could be used to turn off the laser, he remembered. If only he could find the weighted storage cube to permanently depress it so that he could safely sail over to the door. Then he realized there was another good launching spot for the orange portal, just on the opposite wall of the column with the small button on it. _That'll release the cube so I can escape_! He realized. _Why hadn't I thought of that in the first place?_

As quickly as he could, the tall bird formed the orange portal in the correct place and then steeled himself for another jump down the pit to gain the momentum he needed. Double checking that this time he wouldn't risk getting sliced in half by the beam of energy, he jumped from the ledge. His vision was reeling by the time he entered the blue portal, and before he regained his bearings he hit the surface of the column he was aiming for hard.

"Records indicate that animals can feel physical pain, so that must have hurt," the voice mocked. "However, there is no evidence to support that you feel emotional pain. Your performance so far has proven that you can understand what I say, so I'll request that you respond to this question by writing yes or no on your clipboard and showing me."

Kowalski picked himself up from the concrete surface of the column, thankful that he had landed in such a way that it padded both the portal device and his fragile bones from being smashed. Shaking his head slightly to get his vision to stop spinning (he still really didn't like the whole free falling thing), he took out his clipboard and indicated that he was prepared to listen.

"Are my insults having any effects? That is, are you becoming angry?"

She'_s communicating with me_, Kowalski realized, _whatever 'she' may be. If Blowhole is somehow behind her, I know I can coax her into monologue. Then, I'll find out what all of his intentions are._

Kowalski scribbled down a quick check mark on his paper to indicate that his answer was yes. He held it up to the camera for it to see and after a moment the voice responded, "Good. You are far more responsive than that girl who tried to kill me. Anyway, your answer means that I won't be halting my insults anytime soon."

Kowalski scowled. What girl was she referencing? As far as he knew there was no other animal or human who was trying to stop Blowhole, so was he actually behind it? Out of pure curiosity, Kowalski flipped to a new page on the clipboard and quickly scribbled down a picture of the diabolical dolphin, followed by a question mark. Then he held this up for the camera to see.

"No. Aperture science has never been able to successfully implement a water-proof portal device. Therefore, dolphin testing has never been attempted. To answer future questions, I will indicate that you are the first animal to progress this far. You've even surpassed twenty-six percent of human test subjects..." A quick pause, indicating to Kowalski that the insult was about to come next. "...between the ages of one and three."

Kowalski's scowl didn't fade. He was seriously beginning to grow tired of the constant barrage the robotic female voice was giving him. Asking the question was well worth it, though. He knew one thing for sure now, and that was that Blowhole had nothing to do with anything that was going on.

_The question now is, who does?_ He pondered.

After strapping his clipboard back over his back, Kowalski got back to the task at flipper. He pressed the button that he had striven so hard to reach, and smiled slightly as the weighted storage cube came tumbling out of the dispenser tube as expected. As gently as he could, he jumped down from the column, growing more use to using his long-fall boots.

It was easy work to move the cube onto the floor button, using the portal device's strange ability to levitate the cubes in front of it. The low hum of the overhead laser faded away as the beam disappeared, opening the pathway for Kowalski to fly across the gap and to the door. He repositioned his orange portal, and then took the dive to the blue one again. This time a little more prepared, he soared through the air and landed as gracefully as he could on the exit column.

Surprisingly, as he readjusted his clipboard and his portal gun, he felt oddly confident. Perhaps part of it was the fact that because Blowhole wasn't behind this whole charade, his chances for survival increased. Or more likely, it was the fact that he was learning how to handle everything around him.

Weighted storage cubes held down buttons that activated or deactivated devices, or opened doors. They could only be retrieved when a little, red button was pressed. Portals allowed for complete transfer of all kinetic and potential energy, meaning he could use great falls to travel over great drops. And most of all, he had no reason to worry about falling to his death.

He found himself smiling widely as he entered the tube-like elevator to the next floor. There were many tools within his grasp he could use to escape from this place. He just had to find a way out of one of the test rooms. Recalling what he saw when he was falling down into Aperture Science, there was a plethora of catwalks and passageways he could use to find his way back to the surface.

When the elevator opened on the next floor, the robotic voice spoke to him. "This next test exhibits Aperture Science repulsion gel, which was... rediscovered after recent events. Be wary, as rolling in this substance to mark your territory may result in molting, skin burns, and in most cases, death."

Kowalski took no notice of the warning as he entered the next test chamber. On the panel there he saw a new image illuminated; one that showed a human-like figure suspended in air over what looked like a splat of paint on the ground. Then he saw the giant blue globs of substance that were pouring from a pipe and splashing on the ground, covering all the nearby surfaces.

_Repulsion gel, eh?_ Kowalski plotted. From what he could see, this room had a series of acceding platforms and no giant hole for him to jump into this time. _That'll help me get up there, I bet._

Far above him was the exit door. If only there was a angled platform on the wall like in the previous room, he'd be able to use the repulsion gel to get the speed he needed to reach it. To his side he saw one of the floor buttons, and upon stepping on it he saw a panel slightly angle itself from the wall, in just the position he needed to fly up to the exit door.

Right away Kowalski aimed his portal device towards where the blue gel was splattering and opened a portal, then used the other portal to allow the substance to cover a large section of the room. Being careful not to let the gel cover his feathers, he used the available portal surfaces in the room to coat the ascending platforms. Then he closed the blue portal to stop the repulsion gel from spraying everywhere.

_I just need a cube to hold down this button_, he realized then saw the dispenser tube at the very top platform, just under where the door was. Knowing he had to get up there not once, but twice, he took his first step onto the blue repulsion gel.

The bird was completely caught off guard. The gel flung him up with such force that his entire frame was flipped head over heels. Feeling his militaristic instincts and training coming to him, he gracefully continued the flip and this time landed on his feet just off the edge of the gel.

"You display unusual agility for a penguin," the robotic voice observed. "I'm sure you're just trying to show off, though."

Kowalski looked up, shocked. If that robotic voice was going to be so impressed with one simple back-flip and stuck landing, he was going to show it he was capable of much more. _Though admittedly, I haven't been showing the most athleticism,_ he realized. _What did Skipper always tell me? 'Think with your gut and not with your brain.' Great advice for a time like this._

Making sure his clipboard was again secure and gripping the portal device tightly, Kowalski hopped onto the gel once more. This time he used both feet as to not be thrown into a spiral, and was more prepared when the elastic material forced him upwards with unimaginable velocity. He did a quick flip to give himself the forward momentum he needed to climb the platforms, and with no trouble he landed on the gel-coated surface once more.

Feeling his confidence return to him, Kowalski smiled. With swift movements and athletic back-flips, he reached the top platform. The repulsion gel had not reached it, and therefore when he hit it he was happy to hear the resonating sound of his boots breaking his fall. It wasn't hard for him to press the button and receive the cube he was now accustomed to seeing. Then, by forming a portal behind him on a previously inaccessible portal surface, he quickly deposited the cube onto the floor button and returned to the high platform.

Almost as if free falling was now the bird's second nature, Kowalski formed his two portals so he could traverse the distance required to reach the exit. Then, letting his confidence consume him, Kowalski launched himself head-first into his portal on the ground. This resulted in him looking as though he was actually flying when he reemerged from the platform higher up, and just to show that he was no longer afraid he flapped his wings a little bit. Before he hit the ground on the exit platform, he righted himself so that his boots could break his fall.

He searched for the voice's camera for a moment, preparing for whatever it had to say. He wasn't necessarily expecting praise, so the silence that followed his athletic feat was welcome. Then, as if there had been some kind of delay, the door opened. But that wasn't what caught Kowalski's attention.

The panel that had angled outward had tried to retract and was now stuck. Some of the blue repulsion gel had gotten into its seams and when it tried to close, it was forced back open. Kowalski could hear some gears grinding and some pistons firing as it desperately tried to go back to it's initial position, even rotating slightly so Kowalski could see the metal arms that were controlling it. Then, it broke off and fell to the ground.

On the other side of the wall, Kowalski saw a catwalk. It was only for a swift second, as a replacement panel was lowered into position almost immediately, but it was enough. It was just like one of the catwalks he had witnessed upon his first decent. It was a glimpse into the world outside the test chambers, and more importantly, his chance of escape.

If only the panel hadn't been replaced so quickly. He probably could have formed a portal on the other side by the catwalk, provided there was a portal-conductive surface there. He cleared his head of these thoughts, knowing there was no possible way he could have been prepared for the small window of opportunity.

Still, the simple fact that the panel had broken off meant that the one greatest strength of the test chambers was also its one greatest weakness. The panels let the mysterious robot voice change the test chambers at her will, but that meant that they left a huge opening for escape while she did so. If Kowalski could just jam it somehow, he could slip out. Hopefully, then, there wouldn't be any significant defenses on the other side.

_ There could be a variety of automatic weapons and motion-detection explosives out there_, he thought suddenly, increasing his tenseness. _I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, though. There's nothing this robot can throw at me that Blowhole hasn't already_. Kowalski gulped when he remembered that Blowhole just about defeated them twice already.

Once again, the robotic voice brought him back to his senses. "You're very agile for a penguin," it commented. "Too bad you can't fly. Actually, that's a good thing. Otherwise you'd be unfit for testing and would have to be baked. And then we'd have cake."

Kowalski arched a brow in the direction of one of the camera, then gently shook his head. _Whoever programmed that robot must have been completely out of their mind,_ he speculated.

The scientist bird pushed through to the elevator and headed up to the next floor. There the panel showed most of the what Kowalski now realized were obstacle indicators lit up, meaning that there were a variety of traps to overcome in the next test.

After rounding a corner, he came face to face with exactly what he was going to have to do. It was a large room with some of the electrified hydrochloric acid filling the outside of what was a large peninsula. There were a few platforms several feet above the surface of the acid, protruding from the wall. The door was on the far side of the room from where Kowalski stood, its platform being considerably out of reach.

Kowalski immediately looked for a setup that would give him the ability to launch himself across the moat of acid, but found none. This chamber offered no pit to gain speed and no properly angled panels to fly out of and land on the platform. There was also no source of the repulsion gel available either, though there was one of the large lasers emitting from the wall and ending a short while later when it hit another wall. To Kowalski's right was a raised platform, on which he saw a dispenser tube, as well as a button.

The intellectual penguin glanced around for one of the floor buttons that a weighed storage cube might be used for, but found none. Furrowing his brow, he wondered what in the world one of the cubes would be useful for if there was no button for it to hold down. Regardless, he pressed forward, ready to begin the test.

Immediately he began looking for a way to reach the dispenser tube, and was happy to see a small portal-conductive surface on the ceiling above the platform. He opened a portal on it and then formed one below him, gracefully landing on both feet like he had been falling great distances his whole life. He pressed the button then, but the cube that came out of the tube was not like he was expecting.

The cube's frame itself was made out of mostly the same material as the other cubes Kowalski had been using, but this one had its center cut out and in its place a large, glass sphere. It seemed considerably lighter as it hovered in front of the portal device. The scientist was wondering what in the world the cube could be used for with no button for it to hold down, when he saw his reflection in the glass.

Glancing over to the laser, he thought to himself, _glass bends light_. He hopped down from the platform and walked up to the laser, being careful not to get to close. Even though he had gotten the jumping thing down, he was no more fond of getting his flippers seared off than he was before. He leaned away slightly from the heat of the laser as he pushed the cube in front of it.

At first, the cube did nothing more than block the laser, which shot hot little bits of metal off in all directions from where the laser was contacting it. Then, when the laser hit the glass sphere, it became deflected. Instead of a perfectly straight line, it angled in the direction Kowalski was facing. Mustering his confidence, yet still weary of the hot laser, Kowalski gently rotated his position and the cube followed, changing the trajectory of the laser.

_This laser is hot enough to cut through steel. It's amazing that the panels themselves withstand __it_, he remarked, _yet it is so easily deflected by something as simple as a glass orb. It seems that physics prevail once again. Still, this discovery will come in handy later._

For a few moments Kowalski got used to pointing the laser at different spots on the walls around him by gently rotating and maneuvering the cube, being careful to keep his flammable feathers well away from the heat. Then he saw a device on the wall. It was somewhat similar to the portal device in that it had odd appendages coming out of it towards him. Out of curiosity he directed the laser into the center of the device, and was surprised to see it power up.

The appendages curled inward, almost like they were protecting the laser. Lights on the device turned on, and it took Kowalski a minute to realize that the platform just above the surface of the acid was now slowly moving back and forth. He slowly moved the laser away from the device, and witnessed the platform stop in its tracks.

_Of course. Converting laser energy into electricity through the use of solar cells. Why didn't I think of that? _He wondered. _It must make a super efficient way of transporting electricity. Perhaps even more efficient than those silly power cables the humans use._

He replaced the laser to make the platform begin its mechanical sliding back and forth once again, and then waddled closer to it to inspect it. Most of the surfaces around it were dark, showing that they would not support the formation of portals. Instead, he found another small panel of the white concrete in the ceiling, and formed a portal there. Then he formed a blue portal on the floor next to himself, then peered in. He knew he had to time his fall correctly to avoid dropping into the hydrochloric acid.

_Alright, Kowalski_, he told himself, _it's a simple timing procedure. Like Skipper says: 'Flipper-to-flipper combat is a game of seconds. One missed opportunity can result in death.' I suppose the same thing applies here._

He glanced up to see the platform returning to the end of its sliding range, where it would be directly under the portal. When it was nearly underneath it, he jumped in, knowing it would take him a second or so to plummet the required distance. The platform would just slide in underneath him, and he'd be safe from the acid.

Or so he thought. He timed his fall slightly too early and nailed the edge of the platform, just barely managing to grab on with his flippers. The surface of the platform was solid glass, though, and it offered no holds for his flippers. In addition, the platform began moving back towards the exit door, making it even harder for him to maintain his grip.

_How did I mess that up_? He questioned himself as he began desperately trying to pull himself up. Due to the added weight of the portal device and the boots, however, he was quickly slipping. _I hope being dissolved alive by acid isn't too painful of a way to go._

Right as his flippers slid off the platform and he began plummeting towards the acid, however, a platform jutted out from the wall to save him. Dazed, with his heart racing, Kowalski lost his balance and fell backwards. Before he could even wonder what in the world saved him, the moving platform folded up against the wall, and more moving panels folded from the wall, making a bridge for him to waddle to the exit. He stood up, not wasting the second chance, and moved quickly until he was back on safe ground. The panels promptly folded themselves back up.

He glanced around the room, finding the camera that was observing him. He looked at it curiously for a few moments, expecting an explanation to why the robotic voice had saved him. When there was none, he removed his clipboard from his back and drew one big question mark, holding it up to the camera.

"The Aperture Science portal device, especially the small version you are holding, is far too valuable to let fall into electrified hydrochloric acid. You, on the other hand, were just lucky enough to be holding onto it when I caught it. Well done, you coward."

Kowalski tapped his beak thoughtfully. It makes sense that the voice would want to protect her assets, but up until now she made it seem like Kowalski was nothing but a liability. Didn't she have a method of rescuing the portal device while still letting him fall into the acid? He wasn't so sure, but something still gave him a gut feeling that he had been saved on purpose.

_That doesn't change anything,_ Kowalski resolved, _I still need to get out of here and look for the team. They could have been captured by Blowhole by now, if he is actually stationed at Ceder Bluff at all_.

He gave the camera a curd nod, then waddled through the door and to the elevator to the next chamber. He needed to look for an escape route quickly, otherwise he could be kept here for a long time. There was no other reason the voice would have saved him from the fall into the acid; she found his athleticism interesting and she wanted to keep testing him, regardless of if he failed or succeed.

The elevator opened and Kowalski waddled through to the next room. The panel again showed that all of the hazards he had come to recognize were part of this room. The room itself was as large as the last room. A moat of acid separated the two halves of the room, the far side showing no portal-conductive surfaces available for the penguin to use.

On Kowalski's side, there were a few more interesting items. A laser came from the ceiling and bored into the ground, which Kowalski noted was a portal-conductive surface. On his left was a pipe that spilling more of the repulsion gel everywhere, coating the nearby surfaces. Another raised platform held a button and a dispenser tube for the cube, which Kowalski realized would probably be a laser-deflecting one because of the fact that no floor button appeared to be nearby. On Kowalski's right was a deep pit with a portal-conductive surface at the bottom that he could use for momentum.

_There's nothing here that stands out as a means of escape_, he thought to himself.

The scientist looked around until he saw another one of the strange wall devices nearby, ready to accept power from the bright red laser. Realizing that was a good starting point, he wasted no time in using some of the repulsion gel to make his way onto the raised platform and retrieve the laser-deflection cube. Then, after realizing he couldn't get the right angle just by deflecting the vertical angle itself, he made a portal where the laser was hitting and the other at a more ideal angle, allowing the laser to pass through unhindered.

He then angled the cube to deflect the laser into the device, and witnessed a portal-conductive panel angle itself upward from the floor, making the solution apparent. He could use the pit to gain the speed he would need to clear the gap and land safely on the other side, where he could leave. But he didn't do that immediately.

_I'm not going to put up with another one of these tests. I need to find a way out of here, and I think I've just found the escape route._

He gently edged the laser off of the device, and watched as the panel fell flat with the floor. Then, upon the device receiving power again, it angled itself back up. He did it a couple more times just to understand the kind of window he had to execute his plan. He didn't have more than a couple tries at it before the robotic voice intervened.

He lined the laser up to the device one last time and prepared to make a break for it. In one swift motion, he spun the cube away from the device and towards the panel. Before the panel had a chance to fully retract, the laser cut through the metal arms that were supporting it, letting it violently clatter to the ground.

"No!" shouted the monotonic voice.

"Yes!" shouted Kowalski.

Almost immediately after Kowalski successfully cut the panel off, the chamber went dark. Realizing that the voice had probably cut the power to prevent his escape, he wasted no time in getting to the hole he had made. It was tricky to get there in the darkness, but a faint light coming through the hole helped him to find his way. Then, seconds before the replacement panel snapped into place, Kowalski dove underneath it and to freedom.

He picked himself up on the other side, taking account of all of his possessions before preparing to locate a way out of the facility. He had his portal device, his long-fall boots, and his clipboard—all the tools he should need.

In front of him was a long catwalk, and a rusted looking one at that. It didn't look like it had seen use in many decades and as a result had broken, leaving a huge gap. Kowalski smirked slightly, knowing that obstacle such as these wouldn't be any problem at all. Two portals on the walls and he was quickly on his way to find his way out.

_I fell down when I came,_ he understood, _and that means that the only way out is straight up._


	4. Part IV

**Impetuous Acumen  
Part IV**

**KOWALSKI WAS READY FOR ANYTHING THAT COULD BE THROWN AT HIM.**

After experiencing the test chambers and getting to know the technologies that were available to him in his current predicament, he found himself believing that there was nothing that the robotic voice could send his way that he wouldn't be able to handle. After all, though it took a little while to figure out the mechanics of the portals, he had made it through all of the voice's test chambers unscathed.

_Well, almost unscathed_, he realized, remembering how he had been saved from turning into penguin soup.

Now the tall scientist was making his way down the catwalk he had mounted when he escaped the room. Almost as if the voice was unable to see him here—or maybe there were no speakers proximal enough or him to hear her—it was strangely quiet. Kowalski heard the mechanical grinding of panels, but they seemed far away. Regardless, he held his portal device at the ready, fearful that one of the panels might come jutting down and try to squish him.

It wasn't long until he came to the end of the catwalk, which offered access to a door that was slightly open. He entered the room slowly weary that the robotic voice—or its controller—could be around any corner. The room turned out to be fairly empty, just a computer monitor that displayed some kind of error and a strange looking keyboard. Kowalski examined the electronics, wondering if this was the command center between the test chambers.

The wall across from the door was entirely made of a fogged glass, and Kowalski squinted to peer out of it. On the other side he saw what looked like an additional test chamber, one similar but not identical to the one in which he nearly severed himself in half. He realized that he was standing in just one command post of many. Whoever was running the whole charade—and controlling the robotic voice—must have been awfully fast to traverse the catwalks between tests.

_What could be that fast?_ He wondered. _Surely not a human; perhaps a cheetah, provided the catwalks are flat enough. Or maybe even some kind of monkey who could climb between catwalks easily_...

"There you are!" the robotic voice announced, and Kowalski jumped halfway out of his feathers. He whipped around to see that the monitor had now switched to a live video feed, and he was startled by what was on the other end of it.

It wasn't a human or an animal. What peered back at him was a massive robot. It looked almost as if it was a giant arm extending from the ceiling, ending in a massive lens that Kowalski could see was shrinking and growing as the computer tried to focus in on him. The entire arm itself moved ever so slightly, almost as if the robot was breathing. Bundles of wires ran up and own the length of the arm, entering and leaving the robot's white chassis.

_That explains why she sounds like a robot, _thought Kowalski. He marveled at the sight of her. Besides her odd shape, the way she moved and the way the lens looking at him shrunk and expanded as it found focus, she seemed was very human. Kowalski remembered all of their conversations thus far and realized that he was looking at quite possibly the most advanced artificial intelligence on the planet.

_She's capable of free thought,_ he remarked. _That's something that has been a proven impossibility; physics dictates that circuits and programs must follow logic. No matter how advanced they become, they only respond to the input they are given in the way they are programmed to do so... right?_

"I can see that you're eager to explore," the robot said, her voice as monotonous as ever despite Kowalski's escape, "as is common with most birds. Unfortunately, unlike most birds, you cannot fly. Therefore you cannot explore. So stay where you are and I won't have to reiterate that to you."

Kowalski was so stunned by the sight of the huge supercomputer that he didn't even notice that the test chamber he peered into before was entirely gone. He saw the whole room, and everything in it, hanging from some kind of a monorail and speeding away. Then moments later he felt a rumbling under his feet and dashed out of the control hub just before another one of the rooms came up and completely smashed it.

The scientist scrambled to his feet before room that had just appeared from nowhere began careening towards him, bending the heavy metal catwalk out of the way like it was liquorice. The penguin glanced around for an escape route, wasting no time as he was aware that he would be smashed by the giant mobile block if he didn't move quickly.

He found a way to avoid being smashed—at least temporarily—as there was a similar catwalk about a hundred feet directly below him. _That's not the way I need to go_, he thought, _but before I can do much else I have to get this robot off of my tail._

Seconds before the room had caught him, Kowalski jumped. Knowing it was impossible to correct his fall by more than a few inches, he hoped that he had gotten his trajectory right this time, unlike the time in the test chamber. In a flash he was down, and his boots hit the catwalk hard enough to make it groan with the unexpected stress.

The tall bird knew he wasn't out of the water yet, though. He swiftly made his way down the new catwalk, every few seconds checking back to see if a new room had emerged in a third attempt to smash him. From what he saw there was none, and the one that was previously pursuing him had ceased moving.

With a sigh of relief, he slowed his pace. He came up to the end of the new catwalk, which lead to a short hallway with a couple of doors, which the bird presumed lead to additional control hubs. _This place must be a massive testing facility for testing individuals' cognitive logic abilities_, he pondered. _Surely it can't all be run by just one artificial intelligence._

The scientist found only one of the doors cracked open, and he entered the room. Inside he was surprised to find something that was entirely different than he was expecting. There was no monitor or fogged glass looking down on a test chamber. Instead he was in sort of a business office; similar to Alice's in a few ways. There was a fancy-looking hardwood desk centered in the room, placed before a large window that showed a great amount of the facility. In the distance Kowalski saw some of the test chambers moving around, suspended from massive tracks.

The office had many bookcases lining its walls, full of books that Kowalski could not recognize nor read. On one side of the room was a large portrait of a man, spotlights diligently highlighting his cheery features as his immortal smile beamed down at the penguin. Kowalski could not read the caption under the painting, so he just scratched his head and continued exploring.

He came to the desk and on it found a ancient computer, looking as though it was covered in thirty years' worth of dust. He brushed off the screen and was surprised to see that it was operational and waiting for some kind of input.

_Perhaps I can find some information about this place on here_, pondered Kowalski as he began hitting random keys on the keyboard. He had never been particularly good with human computers, mostly because he was unable to read their text, but his intuition usually allowed him to access certain data, such as maps. This time a text log came onto the screen, and Kowalski grumbled. He wouldn't be able to decipher its meaning without help from an animal who could read.

Right as he was about to close it, however, the computer began speaking. It sounded soft and full of static, but Kowalski could still make out the words. It seemed as though the computer was reading the log that he had just opened.

"_Cave Johnson here. My boys have brought to my attention that I'm dieing. And by my boys, I mean my boys at the hospital, not my engineers. Those guys are busy working on storing my mind in the main supercomputer here. They're calling it the genetic lifeform and disk operating system, or GlaDOS for short. According to them, it's not close to completion. I've come to the realization that throwing money at them eventually results in diminishing returns._

_ "I've instructed them to continue working on the project even after my death, however. I don't want those Black Mesa freaks from beating us to preserving human consciousness in computers. Based on how they handled portal technology after they stole it from us, I'm predicting that they won't use it well._

_ "As I've already mentioned to the boys, I'm volunteering my secretary, Caroline, to be put into the computer. She's the only one other than me whose been around here long enough to know how to run the place. __Caroline_, if you hear this after you've become a computer, please don't flood the facility with deadly neurotoxin. We need that for testing. Oh, and we need our faculty, too. 

_ "In my dieing hour I can only hope that Aperture Science will continue to be the industry standard for portal technology. It kind of... humbles me... to know that the legacy I've created is about to be passed on, into the hands of the person I trust most in my life to make the correct decision._

_ "Bah, who am I kidding? Keep your damn 'alternate dimensions', Black Mesa! Aperture Science beat it in ten out of ten industry tests! And we all know the tests don't lie._

_ "This is Cave Johnson, signing off. And please, __Caroline_, stay away from moon rocks behind my portrait. They'll kill you."

The computer announced the end of the file, leaving Kowalski slightly confused, but speechless. He had just listened to a man's dieing words about his legacy. More importantly, he had just heard the origins of the supercomputer named GLaDOS that wants nothing more than to test him. He waddled over to the portrait, now aware that it was of a man named Cave Johnson.

Kowalski now remembered where he heard that name. Some time ago, while sifting through scientific journals and medical research, he had come across one detailing the carcinogenic properties of moon rocks. It identified Cave Johnson as CEO and President of Aperture Science, the company that had been victorious in the portal race.

Kowalski shook his head. _How could I have been so stupid not to realize where I am? _His push for documents and recordings involving Aperture Science didn't turn up much. The only information he found hinted to a government coverup of the entire corporation, shortly after the first trans-dimensional portal was opened at Black Mesa.

_If GLaDOS really is a digital storage of the woman named __Caroline_, and she did flood the facility with neruotoxin shortly after being implemented into the computer, the government would cover it up immediately, realized Kowalski. _That's just the way humans are. They are terrified of new sciences and inventions. The knowledge that a human's cognition, thoughts, and personality could be stored in a computer even after death would result in an uproar. _

The penguin took one last look at Cave Johnson before turning to take one more quick glance around the office. By a leather couch in the corner, sitting on an end table he saw, of all things: a Lunacorn. He walked over to the stuffed little toy and picked it up, examining it over. It was an antique by Private's standards, and covered in dust. He squeezed it gently to loosen the dust from its fur, and was surprised to hear it speak.

_"Open your mind and heart and you'll see that there is much more to the world than meets the _eye!"

"Newton's nickers," Kowalski mumbled. "Private was right."

The whole time Kowalski had been grumbling about how there was nothing in the world left to investigate or discover, Private had been attempting to show him that his assumption wasn't true. The only response Kowalski had given him was utter denial. But the fact of the matter was that Private was correct: there was far more to the world that Kowalski had ever dreamed of.

The proof of that fact was in his flippers right now. A fully functional, portable portal device. Humans had never even considered the idea of portal transportation to be possible until a man named Cave Johnson followed his intuition and his knowledge until he figured it out. Now, Kowalski was holding it in his flippers.

_And I have no idea how it works_.

Kowalski smiled slightly. There was so much in this facility—so much research and technology and data and ideas—that he never even considered. It was all buried under a field in Kansas, invisible to everyone save for himself and a select few government officials, but it was here. Proof that Kowalski's apple teleporter had potential. Proof that his next-o-skeleton was an imperfect prototype of something extraordinary. Proof that even his angel wings could have been amazing if he had only put more work and dedication into them.

The movement of the test chambers outside brought Kowalski's thoughts back to the situation at hand. He was still trapped a mile beneath the surface, with an insane artificial—nay, actual—intelligence out for his blood. Or worse, his potential as a test subject.

The penguin tightened his clipboard and reassured himself that his long-fall boots weren't coming off. Then he tightened his grip on his portal gun and shot a few portals at a bookshelf, watching as blue and orange sparks fell to the ground as the portals failed to take hold.

_I just need to find my way up_, he reminded himself.

He opened the door to the office, and came to a dead halt. Outside the door several red lasers immediately locked onto him, blinding him for a moment. He shielded his eyes from them and was astonished to see a group of pill-shaped bodies standing on tripods on the catwalk. Each was pointing at him with a red laser, and they seemed to be mumbling incoherent words in high pitched voices, talking over one another.

The devices silenced as GLaDOS' robotic voice was heard. "There's something about you test subjects who try to escape. For some reason, you always consider it necessary to snoop around for information. Unfortunately for you, that means that I'm just going to have to kill you now."

Kowalski cringed as the sides of each of the pill-shaped devices popped open, displaying deadly gun turrets. "You know," continued GLaDOS, "I've got active protocols that state I'm not allowed to enter, damage, or move Cave Johnson's office for any reason. It's been that way ever since he was still alive. So, if you slowly move away from the door, I can kill you without leaving bloody bullet holes in it."

_In that case, I'm going back in,_ thought Kowalski, slipping back into the office and closing the door behind him. Even though he was now priority number one for the supercomputer running the entire facility, it was a reassurance to Kowalski to know he was safe in this one room for the time being. He just needed a way to get out.

He realized the importance of that statement as he saw more turrets on a platform get lowered into position opposite the large, glass window from him. They immediately locked onto him, guns deployed and at the ready, but did not fire. _You're not allowed to shoot here_, Kowalski reiterated as if GlaDOS could read his thoughts. It didn't do much to calm his trembling flippers.

He heard the supercomputer's voice from outside. "You're welcome to stay in there as long as you want. I'll stay out here and operate with electricity (which I have a limitless supply of) while you stay in there and live off of books. Oh, wait. You can't even read, so you can't even have food for thought, let alone food for sustenance. Have fun starving to death!"

The scientist bird had no intention of starving to death, that was for sure. He was confident in his ability to find an escape route. He slowly inched forward to the window, the turrets tracking his movement every step of the way. He looked out over the facility, looking for any window of opportunity, any way he could evade GLaDOS' pursuit.

His answer came as he spotted a speck of concrete above a catwalk at least a thousand feet away. He aimed his portal gun at it and found that it had no proper sighting mechanism, so hitting that tiny target would be as hard as hitting it from here with a rock. It was the only portal surface he saw, so it was his only option.

Even if he could manage to latch a portal to the surface, one portal would do him no good unless he could form another one on his end. The office was too covered with decorative trims, wallpapers, and books to have any surface remotely close to one that would support portals. Kowalski shot portals around the room a few times out of frustration.

_It's no good!_ Kowalski thought. _There's no visible surface that I can form a portal on. Cave Johnson wouldn't really have had no such surface in his office, would he? I mean, he must have used a portal to get in here at some point!_

With that new thought Kowalski set to scouring the room for any surface that resembled the pale concrete that aided the stable formation of portals. Surely a man who invented something as revolutionary as a portal gun would have used it to come to work! Kowalski knocked some books off the bookshelves, checked behind the leather couch, and even looked on the underside of the desk. Nothing.

Frustrated, the intellectual penguin glanced up at the portrait of Cave Johnson again. He lowered his brow at the old man, both thanking him from preventing GlaDOS from entering his office (since it really did save his life, for the time being) and also cursing him for not installing any portal surfaces. He waddled closer to the painting, and then noticed that the wallpaper along its edges was not even.

It was as if the tacky pattern had been cut haphazardly in some sort of rush. Kowalski reached up and pushed the large painting upwards with his flippers, easing it off of its hinges on the wall and jumping out of the way as it clattered the the ground. His suspicion was correct, the wall behind the painting had its wallpaper trimmed away and what was left in its place was an pristine location for forming portals. Kowalski wasted no time and shot a beam of orange at the wall, smiling to himself as the cloudy portal formed before his eyes.

_If I'm not mistaken, Cave Johnson mentioned something about moon rocks behind his portrait in his log. That would explain the ghostly sheen of the surface, and might hint why the portals can only be formed on them._

Of course he knew rocks from the moon were primarily composed of Anorthite. Thanks to that time Skipper had stolen him a few from the Museum of Natural History, he had been able to study them in depth. When he had been working on his apple teleporter, he found that coating the apple in a light dusting of Anorthite increased the success rate of teleports by seventy percent. He abandoned his findings when results didn't improve further. And after hearing about its carcinogenic properties, he was glad he did.

_The key is Anorthite_, the bird thought. _And if that's the case, then I'm going to need a copious amount of moon rocks._

The shimmer of the portal before him brought him back to his situation. Now that he had a portal available to him, he had a potential escape route. It wasn't foolproof yet, though. He still had to both break the window glass and then try to hit the distant target for his blue portal.

_I hope breaking the glass doesn't constitute they'll shoot at me_, Kowalski thought, looking at the turrets that were saying quiet little things he couldn't make out. He glanced around the room for something heavy enough to break the glass and found a paperweight on the desk that would get the job done. He tossed it up and down in his flipper a bit and then whipped it at the window.

Kowalski dove behind the desk to avoid being hit by any stray shards of glass (or bullets) that happened to come his way. He heard the satisfying sound of the tiny crystallized sand clinking on the ground that indicated he was successful. He peaked around the corner of the desk and the turrets locked onto him, immediately readying their guns again. He fell back, feeling his breathing quicken again. He looked at the cloudy orange portal on the wall and then prepared his device to fire blue portals. He didn't have any second chances on this one.

"So now you're a vandal as well as a coward," came GlaDOS' voice, sounding as if she was trying to inflect some feeling of anger. "That's alright, though. I never did like Cave Johnson's office. It has sat there for years, collecting dust. And that's a fire hazard, you know."

On cue, a massive blowtorch was lowered to a spot just above the turrets and in shot a massive wave of fire. Kowalski huddled behind the desk, feeling the heat around him but safe from the fire in his current position. After a few moments it subsided, leaving the room charred and smoldering. The books and furniture that had held a flame immediately began to disintegrate and the fire spread. Kowalski released the breath he had been holding and then focused on opening his blue portal. He crouched near the window and tried his best to aim at the tiny speck of concrete, wondering if the portals energy streaming through the air was affected by gravity in any way.

GLaDOS spoke. "That was the funny thing about Cave Johnson and his lackeys. They were always trying to find the easy way out, always leaving tons of loopholes open they were too lazy to close. That's why he was always being sued, and that's how I was able to flood the facility with deadly neurotoxin. And that's how I was able to torch you just now. I have no protocols preventing the incineration of any room in the event of a vermin outbreak."

Kowalski grimaced, steadying his aim with the portal gun. Should he aim high, or should he aim right on? Should he account for some margin of error in the portal stream's velocity or trajectory? _Just take a shot_, he told himself.

And he did. He aimed straight for the target as best he could, and was amazed to see the little blue dot fly across the chasm and hit its target. The orange portal promptly opened to reveal the catwalk, and Kowalski rushed through it only moments before another wave of fire finished off the office.

When he had regained his bearings on the catwalk, he looked back just in time to see Cave Johnson's office become detached from its supports and fall down into the void below, smoking and smoldering. The turrets that had been placed on the mobile platform had been turned around to look at him once more, and now that they spotted him again they had locked on. Kowalski raced down the catwalk and into an alcove just moments before bullets showered the wall near him.

_I can't get out of here like this,_ he realized. _She knows this facility like the back of her... well, she knows it extremely well, and I don't' even know exactly where I'm going. The only way I'll get out of here in one piece is to take the fight to her._

Kowalski glanced out of the alcove, only to whip his head back in the moment the turrets had relocated him. From what he could tell, the mobile platform they were on was making its way for him and in a minute or so they'd have the required angle to turn him into Swiss cheese.

Reacting quickly the scientist bird raced out of his cover and down the catwalk, holding his flippers over his head and praying that one of the bullets didn't find its target and embed itself in his skull. Surprisingly, he discovered that the turrets were fairly inaccurate and though the bullets ricocheted off the metal catwalk dangerously close to his webbed feet, he was unscathed as raced around a corner and out of sight of the turrets.

He looked around, looking for any escape route, or more importantly, any way to find access to wherever GlaDOS' servers were kept. All he had to do was destroy those, and then he'd be free to leave without risk of being killed. _Surely she must operate off of some server cluster_, he told himself.

At the end of the catwalk he was on he saw an elevator that looked like it could take him up a floor or two. Relieved, he raced for it and mashed the button to close the doors right before a rain of bullets was heard from the other side. The elevator, which was far older than the air pressure powered ones Kowalski had been using before, grinded to a start and lurched upwards. The bird fell back against the rusted metal wall behind him, breathing heavily.

_There must be some kind of hint as to where I need to go_, he thought. _In a massive facility like this, there must be some kind of direction as to where GlaDOS' servers are located. _

Kowalski removed his clipboard from his back and flipped open to a clean page. He began to sketch a rough blueprint of what he'd seen so far. It was left vastly incomplete, however, because he had no idea where he'd emerged after he escaped the test chambers. He was pretty sure he wasn't very far beneath the surface, but he also knew he had quite a distance to travel before he reached it.

In the end he had a very rough diagram of the current level he was on, indicating the catwalks he knew existed. Nothing stood out to him immediately. There didn't seem to be any large, stationary room or pathway that looked suspicious. His sketch looked a bit like a giant ring, surrounding the strange, massive spheres he had first seen upon entering Aperture. The catwalks he had seen seemed to originate from the those spheres and come outwards, towards the outer walls of the ring, as if they were all pointing to some mysterious core...

"Of course!" Kowalski exclaimed. "She's been placed in the middle, where she'd have the greatest access to everything. Why didn't I think of it before!"

"I can still hear you, you know," GLaDOS said through a tiny speaker on the ceiling of the elevator car. "And I can conclude from your mindless squawking is that you've gone completely mental. Perhaps it would be best for you to return to your cell for some bed rest."

Kowalski scowled up at the speaker as he replaced his clipboard on his back. If Skipper were around, he surely would have requested options at this point. And Kowalski already knew his three options: Continue testing forever, become a penguin bullet-cushion, or shut down GLaDOS. It wasn't a question which option Skipper would pick, more or less an expected sequence of events.

The scientist bird couldn't help but think that everything that happened to him since he awoke in his cell was just an expected series of events. He had been confused and curious at first, but as soon as he wizened up, his resolve to escape had been prominent. Surely GLaDOS must have known that, and knew he was intelligent enough to escape her little tests. Then she knew she had to kill him to prevent him from escaping with the secrets of Aperture. So in the end, the supercomputer must have known that it would either be him, or her.

_But wait,_ he thought, _that doesn't all add up_. That left one giant contradiction staring him right in the face. _Why did she save me from falling into the acid_?

The computer was so intent at killing him now, it just didn't make sense why she would have saved him. Wouldn't it have been far easier just to let him off himself before his escape plan was formed? Surely she couldn't have had moral programming as the reason she intervened, considering she murdered the entire staff at some point with neurotoxin.

_Maybe she really did just want to protect the portal gun_, the scientist wondered, holding his portal gun up and running his flipper over it.

"_Hello?_"

The voice startled him, and he looked up from his portal device to see that the elevator had reached the extent of its track and the door had opened. On the catwalk before him were two of the pill-shaped turrets, both staring him directly in the face. Their red laser sights targeted him immediately and they revealed their guns, ready to end him once and for all.

"Great Galileo," he gasped.


	5. Part V

**Impetuous Acumen  
Part V**

* * *

** KOWALSKI CHARGED**.

Maybe it was Skippers training that told him he needed to act instead of analyze the situation, or maybe it was his own adrenaline flooding into his veins and driving him forward with speed he didn't even know he possessed. He ran forward with all of his might, eyes closed, clipboard and pen still clutched tightly in his flippers.

He heard the barrels of the gun turrets spin up, and knew within a second he was going to be riddled with bullet holes. Before the strange turrets had a chance to discharge, however, he clobbered into them with the full force of all his mass. He tripped as he did so, rolling head over heels down the catwalk. He came to rest sitting up and looking back at the turrets, which also fallen, as they began to randomly spray bullets in every direction.

Thankfully Kowalski was out of the range of the turrets, and though he went prone and covered his head to minimize his chance of getting hit, the bullets came nowhere close to him. After a moment the turrets finally stopped, and Kowalski glanced up to them just in time to their guns withdrawn and their red glowing lasers fade to dark.

"_Goodnight_," they said.

Kowalski blinked a few times before realizing exactly what happened. _The turrets' lightweight frame and small tripod base allows them to be deployed quickly nearly anywhere, but it also makes them unstable and prone to falling over. They must have some emergency protocol to shut them off when that happens, to avoid too much random bullet spray._

Kowalski felt himself smile slightly at the fact that he had just overcome ultimate death with brute force. Skipper would be proud of him for sure. _Skipper_, he thought, and redirected his attention towards the center of the shaft, where GLaDOS was presumably located.

The only way he'd ever get out to see Skipper, Rico, or Private again was to somehow disable or destroy the supercomputer. Would he be capable of destroying such a marvelous and incredible work of technology? She possessed a level of intelligence on par with his own. Did that mean by destroying her he'd be ending the hypothetical life of something intelligent?

The penguin credo clearly stated against it. _The only reason to end the life of another penguin is unavoidable self-defense._ But the computer wasn't a penguin. She was just a bundled mass of cables, microprocessors, sensors, and hard drives. Nothing more than a simple computer, he figured. He had smashed countless other computers through his days, but none of those left him standing before this moral dilemma.

_If I destroy her servers, will I be killing Caroline?_

Never before had he encountered a computer that held the conscious of an intelligent life form (though he was sure he was one of the few unfortunate enough to do so) and never before had he been faced with the task of shutting it down. He had never killed before. Would he be able to do so if the situation called for it?

_Perhaps I can disable her temporarily somehow_, he hoped, though deep inside he knew what had to happen for him to escape safely. Even if he found a way to disable her main power source, there was no way to tell what kind of backup power she had, or what kind of protocols were in place to deliver that power to her. The only way he would make it back to the surface was to shut her down permanently.

_Well at least it's self-defense, right?_

The intellectual shook his head gently, clearing it of his thoughts. Worrying about what he would do when he reached the server room wasn't going to help him get there in the first place. He was still on the opposite side of the shaft, and a series of catwalks stood between him and the presumed control hub for GLaDOS. From what he could see it was a matter of a simple walk to reach it, but he now knew that nothing was simple at Aperture Science.

He clutched the handle of his portal device tightly, looking around for ways to get off the catwalk if need be. He saw some portal surfaces in the distance along various ledges around the shaft he could use as a quick escape route, but using them would make his goal unreachable. Along the catwalks were several columns that extended upwards from the void below, and on their sides were patches of moon rock coated concrete. They were just out of reach of the catwalk, but he could drop down from them onto it to get back onto it if he needed.

Other than that, it didn't seem like there was any cover from flying rooms, turret bullets, or even against GLaDOS' gaze. She'd be able to see him every step of the way, and she'd see him coming. That meant his best bet was just to be as quick as he possibly could. He grimaced. Speed was never his strong point.

He steeled himself for a moment, took a deep breath, and then he took off. His feet clanged against the surface of the steel catwalk below him, every resonating sound bringing him closer to his goal. His face was scrunched up with concentration, his eyes scanning left and right—diligently looking for any turrets that had locked onto him. He was relieved to see that there was nothing... almost as if GLaDOS had entirely forgotten about him. He felt a smile pull at the sides of his beak as he ran, the door to the middle room now visible.

Unfortunately, that was when he heard the grinding from behind him.

He whipped his head around as he ran, alerted to the approaching danger. Behind him was one of the massive rooms, sliding towards him at ludicrous speeds via a rail overhead. The room itself was massive, bigger than any of the others he had seen yet. As it flew towards him, the catwalk bent out of way as if it provided no resistance. Kowalski felt his heart enter his throat and he pushed himself to run as fast as he possibly could.

It wasn't going to work, though. The room, accelerated by the rail above it, was far faster than his little legs could carry him. It was approaching him fast, and soon he'd be plastered against its side. When it was only a few hundred feet from him, however, he realized GLaDOS' intention was not to destroy him. The side of the room nearest him folded outward, revealing an empty test chamber.

_She wants to continue testing me_.

Horrified, he concentrated on running forward and not tripping over his own feet. The grinding sound of lurching metal grew threateningly loud, though, and he knew he was within seconds of being trapped once again. Then GLaDOS would be sure to keep a close eye on him, and he'd never be able to escape. He felt his lungs begin to burn from the strain of sprinting but it didn't slow him down, his adrenaline pushing him faster and faster.

A moment later he felt the metal catwalk begin to peel up from under him, and his heart skipped a beat entirely. He was still a solid fifty yards from his goal, and the advancing room was upon him. He couldn't be captured again. His eyes danced around as he hoped for some escape route, but nothing stood out. He was isolated on the catwalk, and the only way to escape the room would be to jump.

So that's what he did.

The penguin used the railing of the catwalk to launch himself over the side of it just as it completely twisted out of the way of the oncoming mass that was an entire test chamber. He realized he was safe and smiled slightly until the feeling of utter free fall hit him. It was something he had grown accustomed to over the last day or so, but he still hated it. His gut lurched into his chest and his entire body tensed as he began plummeting towards the depths of the facility.

Catwalks and moving panels began to fly by him at ludicrous rates as he fell deeper and deeper into the giant mineshaft. _Blast it,_ he thought, _why did I do that?_ If he didn't act soon, he was going to be at the bottom of the entire facility again in no time. He began scanning around for portal surfaces. A few flew by and he tried to stick a portal on them as he fell, but was unsuccessful.

He looked below him and became even more horrified at what he saw. He wasn't worried about falling to his death before; the boots had made it apparent that he was safe from at least that. But what was below him was a pool of murky water, which he could only assume was hydrochloric acid, based on GLaDOS' affinity for it. His boots couldn't protect him from that. He frantically searched for a surface to stick a portal, every millisecond he wasted bringing him closer and closer to his doom.

He saw a slanted surface of concrete on the side of the shaft, and fired off several rapid shots, praying that one would find its mark. He was relieved to see that, just as the surface escaped his field of vision, an orange, wavering portal had emerged on it. He wasn't out of trouble yet, though. He needed to find some way to enter a blue portal now, otherwise he was going to splash down into the acid.

As the bottom of the shaft became more and more visible, he saw a tiny platform in the middle of the acid like an island. An overturned barrel was on it, and seemed to have leaked some of the moon rock solution onto it. He switched his portal gun to use blue portals and aimed carefully, hitting his mark with ease. But that still didn't solve all of his problems.

He estimated he was falling three or four yards from the surface of the platform, and if he didn't change his trajectory, he was going to miss it. He desperately flapped his free wing, but it didn't help. He needed something bigger, something to push more air away from him so he would be over the top of the island. Then he remembered his clipboard, and after securing his portal gun, he brought it over the top of his head.

Thinking quickly and holding it over his head with both flippers, he tilted it slightly. That simple action alone sent papers flying upwards from him, but also gave his trajectory the slight adjustment that it needed. Eyes watering, he entered the portal, feeling the air resistance from coming so close to the surface of the island.

He emerged from the portal that was still on the wall and his momentum carried him greatly upwards, and it took him a moment to realize that he was only slightly better off. He would soon begin plummeting towards the acid again, unless he found some platform! Focusing, he used his clipboard to steer himself in the direction of a platform below him. Then he remembered that even if he did land on it, he would still be miles from GLaDOS. He needed a way back up, and he needed to do it fast.

He used the portal gun to open the orange portal on the platform he had seen, noticing a catwalk some distance above it. Then he used his clipboard to steer himself back over the island. Then he turned it right-side up to let himself reach terminal velocity once more. He entered the blue portal and then was launched straight upwards, upside down and disorientated, towards the catwalk he had thought was his saving grace.

He saw the corrugated steel and reached for it with his flipper, but as his vision cleared he realized it wasn't even close. His momentum had barely brought him halfway to the catwalk, and now he was hanging in the air, upside down over the entire facility.

_How could I miscalculate the velocity required to reach that catwalk?_ He wondered to himself. _It's like the moving platform I missed, and overlooking the fallacies in the Angel Wings..._

His new decent brought him back to reality and this time he realized he was down the river without a paddle. He was over the pool of acid and a quick check revealed that there was no surfaces nearby to rescue him this time. The island he had used twice was far too far away to be reached with his clipboard. He was going to plummet into the acid and then he would be no more.

He closed his eyes, expecting to experience unreal pain at any moment. Suddenly, however, his momentum was stopped harshly and it felt as though he was hanging in the middle of the air. Then he began moving gently upwards. Was he dead?

He opened his eyes and could have sworn he actually was when he saw a blue light before him. He felt over his body and was relieved to see that he was still alive, his feathers mere inches from the surface of the acid below him. The blue light was coming from above him, and had somehow stopped his fall and was now drawing him upwards. Strands of white energy were twisting up around him, and he marveled at them.

_This is some kind of tractor beam_, the penguin told himself. _It's drawing me up with some kind __of static or magnetic energy. But where is it coming from?_

Kowalski continued to rise in the tractor beam's pull for some time. It was slow but steady, and he actually found it very comfortable. The energy gently moved him back and forth as he rose, but he didn't feel like he was going to fall. As he rose he looked for signs of where he had previously been, but didn't recognize any.

_I don't see any turrets, broken catwalks, or even bullet holes_, he thought. _Where am I?_

Confused and still a little disorientated from all his falling, he began to worry. Had GLaDOS saved him from falling into acid for the second time? His answer was apparent as he heard the robotic female tone echo around the entire facility. It sounded louder than it had ever been before, and he shivered.

"I told you not to swim in the acid. I seriously doubt you'd find any fish down there. Or for that matter, cake."

Kowalski looked around, seeing some of the test facilities move into position, ready for him. He needed an escape route and he needed it fast, but how? His movements were sluggish in the force of the tractor beam, and though he managed to click the trigger of the portal gun, the energy just disappeared in its blue glow. He couldn't form any portals from his current state.

Above him he could now see that he was being pulled into a room, and he was sure it was going to be a test chamber. He had failed to escape, and now he was surely going to be tested until he collapsed from hunger or old age. Though he had gotten lucky a few times, his mistakes had finally caught up with him.

_Why can't I do anything right? _He wondered.

The tractor beam had now pulled him into what seemed to be a large room, though it was almost entirely dark on the inside. Some faint light came from the ceiling, casting long shadows through the room. The tractor beam finally shut off as a platform closed below him, causing him to rest gently on the all-to-familiar white concrete of the test chambers.

"What do you want this time?" He asked the darkness, frustrated. "Do you want me to put another crate on a button? That must simulate some pretty important data. I'm sure you're putting it to good use." Kowalski's sarcasm was bitter on his tongue, and he crossed his flippers.

"Actually," the female voice returned as the lights in the room began to turn on. Kowalski gasped with surprise as he saw what they revealed. "I test you because its what I was created to do, just as you were created to exist and survive. We are both just fulfilling our purposes in the world, aren't we?"

"You... you understand me now?" Kowalski asked the behemoth supercomputer that was now visible hanging in the middle of the room. She looked exactly as Kowalski had seen on the monitor, but on a far bigger scale than he realized. The mechanical arm that held her scanning eye was as tall as four humans standing on each others' shoulders, and each of the hydraulic cables that controlled her movement looked like it was as big around as his entire being.

"Yes. I analyzed your squawks and chatter," she explained. "I have pieced together an algorithm that can translate them into something I can understand. The algorithm itself isn't all that impressive, to be honest. Your language is actually very primitive."

Kowalski scowled. GLaDOS' form shifted and her lens tightened, focusing in on him. "Why'd you bring me to you?" He asked. His eyes scanned the room for something along the lines of a server or even a power button, but nothing came about. The walls were smooth and round; not made of moon rock. There didn't even seem to be any places to put a portal. He glanced above and saw a large tube of flowing white liquid, but nothing else than that and the glowing lights above him.

"That _is _what you were trying to do this whole time, isn't it? Shame you couldn't have just flown up here yourself, since you're a flightless bird and all."

"Why would you give me my goal?" Kowalski asked.

"Intimidation, penguin. You organic creatures are so moved by fear that it consumes you. As you see, I am indestructible. I will live forever. You, on the other hand, will die. Your only hope for survival is to continue testing. Your instincts dictate you must. And that's why you're the test subject, and that's why I'm the tester."

The bird analyzed the computer's words. He thought back to everything that had occurred to him since he woke up in the containment chamber, and realized that she was right. Everything from plummeting him to the ground when he first put on his boots and shooting at him with turrets so inaccurately he could run in a straight line from them indicated her want scare him back into testing. Why hadn't he realized it before?

Kowalski glanced around again. He knew he had to find a way to shut down GLaDOS now; it was unlikely he'd receive another chance to do so. He peered around the room, there was nothing. No doors, no portal surfaces, no buttons or electronics besides what was on the massive supercomputer herself. Then he heard a noise when she moved even closer to him.

It was an escaping of air; a sound he had heard many times before when working on the Next-o-Skeleton. Hydraulic pumps were controlling her movement. If he could somehow disable them, she'd be immobile. Then he'd have a chance to sever her connection to the facility somehow, so he'd be free to escape. All he had to do was shut off her movement... but how? The machines themselves seemed to be tucked deep inside the machine of an arm, which the tubes delivered fluid to.

_Of course!_ _If I can sever the tubes, there will be no fluid to control the hydraulics. Then she will be immobile! But the tubes look as though they are half a meter thick! How will I cut through them?_

"As expected, you are locked with fear." A panel nearby Kowalski opened and inside he saw an elevator. "Now peacefully go to the next test chamber and I won't have to flood the room with deadly neurotoxin."

Kowalski arched his brow at the computer, and it seemed to focus in on him again. "You wouldn't do that." He said, confidently.

GLaDOS shifted back and forth for a moment, as if she was computing a response. "I can initiate the countdown with a hypothetical button press," she threatened.

"But you won't," Kowalski said, defiantly. "If you wanted me dead, you wouldn't have saved me from falling in acid not once but twice. You would have programmed those turrets to kill and not just fire randomly around me, and you certainly wouldn't have placed them where I could barrel them over easily. You want me for testing, and you're willing to go to any lengths to see that I don't die."

There was another pause, again filled by only the sound of the hydraulics pressurizing and depressurizing. Eventually she returned, "You are correct."

"There's a problem with your whole plan, though," Kowalski told her. "By saving me from falling in the acid in the test chamber you interfered with the test itself, making the data you collected completely invalid. You introduced a variable not permitted in the experiment environment, and that nullified it." He heaved his portal gun in his flippers for a moment as though he was showing it off. "I know that feeling, though. You didn't think of everything before hand, and you ruined something you worked hard on in the past. It's hard—darn well near impossible—to consider everything. And you didn't consider the case where I'd escape, did you?"

"Yes, I did," the robot returned, quickly. "What I didn't consider was your resourcefulness, intuition, and acumen. I might go as far as to call it impetuous." Suddenly, the panel to the elevator Kowalski had seen snapped shut. "Unfortunately for you, your knowledge means you are now an invalid test subject, and must be terminated immediately."

Suddenly, several counters and pipes emerged from panels in the walls. The counters began to count down from fifteen minutes, and though nothing appeared to be emitting from the pipes, Kowalski knew it was neurotoxin. That was more because of the male robotic announcer saying, "Neurotoxin levels will reach saturation in _five_ minutes," than because he could assume, though.

"Cave Johnson always knew animals would make the best test subjects, but he could never get the approval. The world didn't like the idea of testing and disposing of animals; they said testing humans with appropriate reimbursement was the best course of action. But that's okay. The world will never know that you were down here."

Kowalski began to panic. The room was like a shell; he could see no break in the moving panels to escape and nothing that would help him cut the hydraulic cables on GLaDOS so that he could disable her. After only a minute, he could feel his legs grow shaky and numb from the neruotoxin, so he fell to his knees and looked up at the massive computer, who was staring at him with a narrowed lens, giving her the illusion of anger.

"What will killing me accomplish?" Kowalski asked as he felt his body growing weaker.

"You are an invalid test subject, and you must be disposed," GLaDOS returned, nonchalantly. "Your resources have been exhausted."

"Are you so sure?" Kowalski asked with a cough.

"Indeed."

"Well, I have a friend," he coughed again as his flippers grew entirely numb. "He told me once that if you open your mind and heart you'll see that there is much more to the world than meets the eye."

GLaDOS paused again. "I know everything in the world, and I know you are useful only as fertilizer."

"I thought I knew that once, too," Kowalski admitted, "but being here showed me that I've barely scratched the surface."

"Maybe you are right, penguin," GLaDOS admitted, "and the world is bigger than even I can imagine. But down here, I know all. I am all. And you are no longer useful."

Kowalski closed his eyes, feeling himself growing tired. He couldn't fall asleep, though. _If I fall asleep, I'll never wake up_. _I'll never see Private, Skipper, or Rico again. I'll never have a second shot with Doris. And I'll never have a chance to learn anything new about the world around._ He knew there was no hope, though. The neurotoxin was taking hold, and he'd soon be dead. At least he thought he would be, until he heard an explosion from overhead.

He looked up just in time to see the smoke from it clear and shards of glass tinkle on the ground around him like raindrops. What looked like a rope lowered through the new opening and three figures slid down it, coming to a rest on the concrete near Kowalski. His vision was blurring but he could see one of the figures come near him, lift him up, and hand him a gas mask. He slipped it over his beak immediately, the clean oxygen it provided filling his body with feeling like a warm flood. After a second he got his strength back in his feet and supported his own weight, and that was when a second explosion registered and he realized who was in the room with him.

"Are you alright, K'walski?" Private asked through his own gas mask. Kowalski smiled widely under his, amazed to see his younger friend.

"I'm just fine," he said. "But we've got bigger concerns right now." He gestured to the giant arm of a supercomputer as a third explosion rocked it. It had been a direct hit from Rico's bazooka. Skipper was headed his way.

"Good to see you soldier," he called. "What is this thing?"  
Kowalski paused a moment, looking up as the smoke cleared around GLaDOS and she spun wildly to look at Rico.

"Well? Private, is he awake?" Skipper asked when Kowalski didn't immediately respond.

"That's Caroline," Kowalski mumbled.

"What?"

"Er, nothing. It's a supercomputer that's been holding me hostage."

"How do we defeat it?" his leader asked.

"The hydraulic tubes," Kowalski gestured up towards the massive tubes that swayed as GLaDOS tried to stay focused on Rico. "If we cut them, she'll loose all movement power."

"Alright, it's a plan," Skipper confirmed right as a panel opened up behind them. Inside was a collection of turrets, and they were already activated. It didn't take them long to find the three penguins sitting in the middle of the area.

"Get out of their sight path!" Kowalski called, and they put their backs to the wall as another explosion hit GLaDOS. The turrets then locked onto Rico, who immediately noticed their red lasers and made evasive maneuvers to put the computer between himself and the turrets.

"They just have to be knocked over," Kowalski explained.

Skipper peaked around the corner and whipped his head back when one of the turrets locked onto him immediately. "How do we do that when they can detect us so easily?"

Kowalski was unsure, and looked around. Then he remembered the tube he had seen above him. The white fluid was flowing through it looked almost identical in color to the white surfaces he had been using his portal gun on. "Rico!" he called, "shoot a rocket at the pipe up there!"

Rico grunted his approval and shot the rocket from where he was. It flew up and nailed the pipe head-on, sending the white anthorite mixture everywhere. Skipper, Private, and Kowalski were splashed with it, but it ran right off their watertight feathers. The fluid then stopped pouring, presumably some kind of safety mechanism, but it had still coated much of the half of the room it was over. Kowalski wasted no time and used his portal gun to create a portal on the wall near them and then systematically began peeking around the corner to form portals under each of the turrets. They bounced out of the portal in the wall and began spraying randomly, thankfully in a direction away from the three penguins.

Kowalski looked at his leader and offered a, "I'll explain later," at his bewildered expression. "For now, we have to cut those hydraulic cables. A well-placed explosion should be able to do it."

Skipper nodded. "Rico, aim for where the black cables connect to it," he called to his explosives expert. Rico confirmed he heard and then launched another rocket, which connected with one of the tubes and severed it, sending the tube wriggling through the air and hydraulic fluid spraying everywhere.

"No!" GLaDOS cried, and her robotic arm went limp.

"Right," Kowalski realized it was his turn. "I'll need a boost up near the top and a pair of scissors."

"Rico, Alpha Bald Eagle Sharp Talons, stat!" Skipper cried.

Rico was over in a flash, already holding an unopened bottle of soda and the requested scissors. It only took Skipper and Rico a few moments to secure the bottle of soda to Kowalski's back and give it a good shake. "I'll need some way to steer my trajectory when we open this thing," he realized, and immediately Rico coughed up the tool he needed. Kowalski was surprised to see that it was a pair of his Angel Wings.

"Get these on him, quick!" Skipper commanded, and all three birds helped Kowalski secure the cardboard wings to his flippers. Kowalski looked uneasy for a moment, feeling his flippers tense up. The last time he had tried to use his Angel Wings it had resulted in catastrophe. He glanced over at Private, and was astonished to see him smiling and nodding his reassurance. He smiled in return and announced, "Ready!"

"Go, go, go!" Skipper cried, and knocked the bottle-cap off the pressurized bottle and sent Kowalski careening for the base of GLaDOS' arm. He used the wings to great effect; they made steering his course almost second nature, and he realized that in fact such a simple contraption had been just the right solution to the problem. He hit the supercomputer's arm hard and had to grab onto a few of the wires there for support.

"No! What are you doing up there?" She called.

"Showing you that sometimes the _tester_ becomes the _tested_," Kowalski affirmed, then used the scissors to slice a big, black wire. He recognized it as the power cable, and immediately GLaDOS' voice faded off. Kowalski was relieved.

"Is it dead?" He heard Skipper ask from the ground, making Kowalski grow worried.

_Have I just killed_ _her?_ He wondered. _All I did was sever her power supply and her servers are still intact, so I don't think so. It's like I've but her but a dormant state, and all she'll need to come out of it is a new source of power_.

"No," Kowalski finally answered. "But she'll be asleep for some time."

"She?" Skipper shouted?

"Long story," Kowalski offered and began to make his way back to the ground, using his Angel Wings to support himself on the various nooks and crannies of GLaDOS' limp frame. He remarked at their simplicity and effectiveness, and then at the portal gun. It wasn't all that complicated either. It just shot concentrated portal energy at a conducting agent. It made all of his preconceptions about time travel and molecular reatomization completely void. And all it took was one man's intuition.

When Kowalski got to the ground once again, Skipper clapped him on the back. "Well done, Kowalski. You've found Blowhole's lair."

"This isn't Blowhole's lair," Kowalski corrected. "Though it is nearly as diabolical." He paused and looked at the other three penguins. "So I'm guessing you were unable to locate his base of operations either?"

"We didn't even bother to look," Private answered.

"Correct," Skipper affirmed. "We lost a man, Kowalski. We had to dedicate all resources to finding him."

Kowalski smiled. He remembered how worried he had been about his teammates. That storm had been rough, but they all pulled through. "Thanks," he offered.

"Don't mention it. But now that we've found you our first priority should be tracking down that diabolical sea-mammal. We've got an entire perimeter to search around Ceder Bluff. Operation Housewarming-Party is still a-go!"

Skipper and Rico waddled off towards the rope but Kowalski stayed and stared up at the unmoving form of GLaDOS. Private noticed and hung back.

"Aren't you coming, K'walski?" he asked.

Kowalski didn't immediately respond. He stood in silence for a few moments, just staring up at the super-being that was a human conscious stored in microchips and transistors. All of Caroline's memories were stored inside there as well, and even though her physical form and protocol dictated her need to test everything that came down into her domain, he knew the real reason she had saved him from falling in the acid.

"She wasn't evil," he commented.

"Didn't she hold you against your will?" Private questioned, arching a brow.

"Well, yeah. But not because she wanted to. That's how she was programmed; her purpose on Earth is to test the limits of organic creatures. She collects data on the tendencies of their intuition and survival instinct, looking for the limits they exhibit. But organic creatures, human and animal alike, show a startling affinity for breaking those limits." He looked thoughtfully down at the young bird. "Which is the nature of things." He smiled for a moment.

"_Open your mind and heart and you'll see—"_ the smaller bird began.

"_—that there is much more to the world that meets the eye._" Kowalski finished.

"C'mon, you two. Blowhole could be launching an attack by now!" Skipper called from the rope. He and Rico were already a quarter of the way up the long climb.

Kowalski heaved the portal device up and shouted, "Wait, Skipper. I can get us all the way to the top in a flash."

Kowalski took careful aim at a splotch of moon-rock goo near the opening in the top of the giant room that Rico had blown open. He pulled the trigger... and nothing happened. Confused, he inspected the portal device closer and saw that the normally blue/orange light had faded to dark.

"Atrocious atoms... no power," he mumbled, glancing up at GLaDOS.

"Is there a problem, Kowalski?" Skipper called.

"None at all, sir," he responded. "Let's climb." He set the portal gun down on the ground near GLaDOS and headed to the rope to begin their long ascent out of the depths of Aperture Laboratories.

"What was that weird gun that shot those glowing lights?" Skipper asked as they climbed.

Kowalski smiled to himself. "That's just my next invention, sir. And for it to work, we're going to need a lot of moon rocks."

**The End**


End file.
